


Balance of Power III

by Grendel



Series: Thronestuck [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Game of Thrones - Freeform, Gen, Magic, Medievalstuck, Middle Ages, Multi, a song of ice and fire - Freeform, fantasystuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 17:44:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grendel/pseuds/Grendel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Separated for months, Aradia and Equius grow distant. But the impending marriage of Princess Feferi to Lord Eridan Ampora draws all sorts of people to the capital, including the mysterious Lord Scratch. Could there be a chance for reunion? But if there is, at what cost?<br/>Updates Mondays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Grendel here! Can I just say how excited I am that this baby is finally postable? Should have been up WEEKS ago but then school happened. ("I'll take an English and two high level history courses! What could go wrong?" and other stupid things I say at the start of the semester.)  
> Anyway, this fic contains violence, sexual content, questionable reinterpretations of canon, and ought to be read with a healthy suspension of belief. The timelines jump around a fair bit but it's all labeled at the start of the chapter. That all said, I hope you enjoy it. Please comment and tell me what you like, what you don't, etc.  
> Happy reading!

_Fourteen months ago._

The indirect light filtered in, dusty and distant, from the crack of the tall window that managed to be above the line of the bed curtains. It played over two resting lovers, touching some places to throw them in relief against the soft shadows of other places. The swell of the woman’s bared breasts and the rise of her fair cheek stood out particularly well. Her long lashes and thick hair shone a well-brushed black.  
A necklace, so beautiful and delicate, hung from her slim neck, falling unevenly to one side as she lay curled. It caught the light and threw sparkling patterns, cells of red in diamonds and circles, over her flesh. The gold still gleamed and the odd, night unidentifiable red stone still glinted. She’d always taken good care of her singular possession of value, after all.

The woman sighed softly in her sleep, shifting her weight slightly and pressing closer into the warmth provided by the man behind her. His figure rose hulking behind her, a massive man holding a tiny woman safe as could be. The light dusted over his shoulder and arm, thick with muscle, on top of the blanket, curling around to rest his hand on the woman’s soft belly. His thumb traced small, idle circles over the sheets.

Equius cupped Aradia’s sleeping form with perfect care, laying on his side and curling his great bulk around her protectively. She never seemed small when they were sparring, tossing barbs verbal or literal, or when they slept together in hot flurries of blanket (or hard against furniture of any sort, as the case may have been). But at times like this... when she was drawn almost into a ball, doubled quite in on herself... Equius was reminded of how delicate she really could be. A slight young woman, muscle and curves notwithstanding, who reached not even to his shoulder.

They were hidden away here, wrapped up in bed in Aradia’s room, deep inside the Clocktower. The Clocktower was Scratch’s domain, tucked into a cove along the rocky Eastern shore of the Empire. It was so far north that it was almost in the Voidlands, Equius’s domain. But it was not quite there, and it was a solid two week ride for him to get there.  
But it never felt like two weeks when he traveled there from the Stronghold. That probably had something to do with Aradia.

Equius only knew of this place because of her, after all. After a year of imprisonment, she had memorized the place well, and she studied hard what her master taught her. Scratch may have accused her of being no true mage, but she knew what she was doing enough to each herself things she needed to know. Many months of late nights in Scratch’s personal library had given her instructions. She could use her knowledge of the Clocktower (and her knowledge of Equius and how he thought) to send him images, pictures of where she was and how to reach her.  
The original plan had been escape. He found his way to her, guided through the treacherous maze of cold marsh and rock that guarded the fortress, and she snuck out onto the fens to meet him... only to discover that she physically _could not_ do so. There was some boundary, invisible, or else a tether that tied her to the Clocktower... and to Scratch. It became quickly apparent that there would be no leaving for her, with or without Equius.

Possibly more alarming still was the fact that Equius could neither come nor leave without guidance from Aradia. She had to mentally direct his every step, every single time. He was totally unable to memorize the path, and the few times they tried were met with utter disaster. He could visit her, in secret within Aradia’s apartments to hide him from Scratch or any of his minions... but she could not leave with him.  
Nor could he stay with her forever. The danger was too great, and he had a corner of the kingdom to govern. Their visits lasted only a day or two at a time, and then he had to ride his horse as hard as he dared to get back before he was too missed. Luckily with Aradia’s aid his travel time was halved, so it was not as dire as it might have been. Still, after a monthly pattern of this for ten months, it seemed odd to the other residents of the Stronghold. They would have to be more careful.

His large hand reached up, mindful and surprisingly gentle, to pet the wild dark mess of his lover’s hair. Equius wound a delicate curl around his first two fingers, careful not to pull, not to wake the beautiful sleeping woman. His flesh stood out, paler and more blue-toned, nearly ashen, against the warm flush of her. He was angles, flats and plains, where she was soft rolling hills and curved lines.  
From the first time he saw her, Lord Zahhak had not once doubted Aradia’s beauty. And after that first night, he had never once questioned that he loved her, passionately, intense as every emotion he had ever repressed. And being returned to her rekindled the fire he’d felt. He had missed her _so much_... just thinking on being parted from her again brought on a near physical pain, a tightening in his ribs constricting his chest terribly.

His hands abandoned her hair to trace a delicate line down her cheek to her neck to her shoulder, moving along the path of curves nature drew for him to follow. Her skin was so soft. Had it always been so? Had the pasture peasant somehow managed to preserve herself through years of hard work and several months of army life? Or was this another work of magic from that pale little man, some magic trickery? It didn’t feel like trickery. Everything about her felt so terribly, terribly _real_. Almost too real to be real, in an odd way... that she was returned to him... Equius had to question his luck. She seemed too good to be true.

“We could just lay here, you know.”  
Equius looked down at the woman in his arms, not responding in words, only drawing small circles on the soft flesh above her elbow. Her warm eyes were open, staring mildly off into space, as if they could look right through the heavy green damask curtains.  
“Lay here, in this lovely soft feather bed,” Aradia went on, her voice a small, slightly hoarse murmur, “Ignore the politics. The games. And your Empress. And my master. We could burrow so deeply under the sheets that they never find us.”  
Equius had to crack a small smile. “An escape plan, I see,” he commented mildly, “You’ve put thought into this.” His own voice was a low rumble, a little parched.  
Aradia closed her eyes and exhaled heavily, slipping back further into the warmth of Equius. “Just enough to have no backup.”

It was after dawn, but not by much. The light still had grayish undertones, though it was lightening up and becoming more yellow. The fire had gone out sometime in the night, giving the room a chill that drove them both deeper beneath the covers. There were people waiting for them, Scratch for Aradia and Equius’s people back at the Stronghold. There were expectations to be met, tasks to fulfill. But at that moment, neither of them could be bothered to rouse themselves to care.

“We’ll have to rise at some point,” Equius rumbled softly, “You have to return to Scratch, and I have to return to the Stronghold.”  
“What if we didn’t?” Aradia replied after a moment. He turned to examine the women. She still wasn’t looking at him. “We could let him win. Scratch.” Equius stirred. He didn’t think he liked where she was going with this. “What if we worked with him, bent to what he said to do and willingly agreed. You could offer your aid in his plan. And then...”

Aradia rolled over so that she was laying on her back, one of Equius’s arms beneath her, supporting her neck. Her stare shifted to the space above them, one swath of canopy strung across the four posts of the bed, and then the stone of the ceiling overhead.  
“And then he’d probably reward you, for going over willingly. He doesn’t need to destroy the Empire, just own it. I don’t know what his master wants, but why would he bother with the Voidlands? They’re too far out for them to be of any true use to him.” She’d put thought into this, that much was clear. “When his army arrives and his lord, Scratch can’t possibly want me for a servant anymore. He complains about me endlessly as it is; I imagine he’d be pleased to have me out of his hair.” She turned to look at her lover at last. “I could go with you. We could be together. Just as we’d wanted, just like we planned it before. It would be so easy.”

Equius propped himself up on one elbow, half-leaning over Aradia. Red brown eyes searched for an answer in the dark blue looking down at her. “I swore fealty when I became a lord, Aradia,” Equius replied, as if it were so simple a discussion as that. “I swore an oath to defend the Empress and her Empire with my lands and my life, if need arises. I cannot fling her aside or betray her, regardless of my own desires.”  
“Nothing would be different for you,” Aradia argued blankly, “Your position would scarce change. One master is very like another.”  
“But they are _not_ the same. I cannot do what you ask of me.” Equius removed his arm from beneath the woman’s head and sat up. The sheets pooled around his waist as he leaned forward.

The scar on his back stood out quite plainly against his skin. Where he’d been tan, he was now far paler, though the edges smoothed seamlessly together, blessedly not raised or turned into a shine or keloid. It didn’t pain him overmuch of late, and that was a pleasant thing for which he was quite grateful.  
Aradia sat up a second after him, leaning close. It had become a mark of great fascination for her. Delicate, slim fingers reached carefully out to trace the air along the borders, and then the thing itself. Equius did not jump or flinch from her touch. He was a warrior, and he knew her well. He’d supposed what she would do the moment she sat up.  
The pads of her fingers (softer, now, than they’d been three years hence; her imprisonment had softened much of her, god food and no rough work gentling her skin and rounding her curves) slipped along his skin, curious and careful. Equius let her do as she wished. It would have seemed, for the outside observer, that they were a bird and a lion - some great beast full of danger being toyed with by some tiny creature too far below his notice. But of course this was anything but true, and they both knew it.

Equius was a warhorse. Dangerous? Yes, very, in his own element. He had power. He could crush someone easily if given the cause or the order to do so. But he was no predator.  
And Aradia...  
It was hard to say just what Aradia was. Once, she may have been a sheep. But she’d quickly shed that wool. Now maybe she was a bird of prey. Beautiful and dangerous, sharpness hidden in her mouth and her hands. She was deadly, that was for sure.  
But at least for now she did not choose (and, yes, of course it was by her choice alone and little else) to use that sharpness against Equius. He was ever at her indulgence, and for now he was indulging her. 

She traced the circle on his back several times before leaning in to kiss him softly at the dead center of the scar, and then to lay against him. Her front pressed into him, chilled skin warming and soothing chilled skin. Her cheek distorted as she pressed the side of her face into him, wrapping her arms around his torso and pulling close.

Outside the window, the glass barely muffled the choppy northern sea. The Clocktower stood on a cliff even more sheer than the ones around the grand cities of Beforus or the Aquarium, jagged and deadly. The cliffs and the castle above it were made of thick stone, rich with copper deposits. The copper and the salty sea had reacted over the decades to turn everything a pale, ghostly green that reminded Equius of sickness. He hated to think of Aradia - _his_ Aradia - trapped in such a place.

“Did I ever thank you for it?” Equius asked, just to have something to break the silence.  
Aradia raised a brow, and pressed so near he felt her question.  
“Saving me,” he explained.  
The woman found one of his arms with her hand and though she could not enclose the bicep with her small hand, she squeezed tight. “You never needed to,” she replied, “I know you’re grateful. And it was an even exchange, besides. You’d already saved me.”  
He shook his head. His long black hair curtained his face from the manner in which he leaned forward. “That was nothing. I shoved you. I didn’t sacrifice my freedom for you.”  
“But you would have, if you’d been able.”  
Yes. He knew that. The pair faded into silence again.

The quality of the sunlight was changing slowly, letting the room turn yellow in the light from the tall windows. The bed grew comparatively shadowed from the curtains.  
“If you won’t betray her,” Aradia said at great length, “Then don’t.” She took in a shivery breath. “You and I could run. We can escape. Hide out until the danger is done. And then we’ll find what place we can. We don’t have to have a castle. We can hide where and how we need, for as long as we must.”  
The grip of her arms and her hand intensified, to the point where Equius was shocked. He could feel her hurting him, nearly bruising with her ferocity. “As long as we aren’t separated again, nothing else matters.”

He had never expected her to be this possessive. But after last night and her words, he supposed he couldn’t be surprised. Scratch had... changed things in her. Gone within and stirred things that never were meant to be stirred. And Equius wasn’t quite certain how he felt about it.  
But he could not deny that he wanted them to be together. Close and inseverable. As he was sure that they were meant to be. He’d felt that since the moment he’d met her that they were _meant_. The fact that Aradia - his bold peasant beauty, his passionate lowborn goddess, the glorious woman he’d found in the mud and dragged into place as the glorious lady she ought to have been in the first place - finally, _finally_ thought so too encouraged him.

Aradia pulled back and leaned over, looking at him with some concern. It took him a moment to realize why: his heart was racing. He hadn’t even realized how worked up he was getting himself.  
“...Equius?” she asked softly, tipping her head to one side.  
“How?” he asked suddenly, sounding nearly strangled.

She looked at him as if he had asked her the simplest question in the world. “We kill him,” she murmured, so soft it was as if she thought her master in the same room with them. “We end his life. He expects magic from me; he thinks that if I make an attempt it will be sparks and poisions. But he wouldn’t think I’d be brash. I’m not armed, after all... there aren’t weapons here, not in that sense.” She smiled as she thought of all the training Equius had given her.  
“A knife,” she went on, “If you can give me a small blade, easily hidden... I can plunge it into his back when he least expects it. And then he’ll be dead and his curses broken. And then we can run.”  
She seemed so _sure_.  
Equius took a moment to breathe and retake control of his voice and his body before nodding. It was not foolproof, but it was by far the best chance they would have. “We will find a way,” he agreed, turning to look at Aradia. And then, moving quickly, he reached out and grabbed her, his large hands rough on her arms as he took her and dragged her close. She stiffened for a moment, but softened when he clutched her to his broad chest, grip hard and desperate.

“I will not be parted from you again so easily,” he swore in a low growl. They held each other tight and close and nearly painfully for a time, perhaps for too long, though neither kept track of the time spent.  
“I wouldn’t let you if you wanted to,” Aradia replied in a whisper into Equius’s ear that twisted his stomach. 

When they did draw apart at last they kissed, hard and desperate and in such closeness that they seemed to be in a battle for one another’s breath. But that, too, faded after a time and they relaxed into gentle touches. Aradia stroked the line of Equius’s chin and jaw as he carded his fingers through her long hair.

It would be done. They’d make it. For once, Equius felt he could be certain of something again.


	2. Chapter 2

_Now._

A year.  
On long, solitary year. The songs and stories always spoke of fair maidens trapped in towers, awaiting their beloved ones. In the kinder ones they were one day reunited and fell into one another’s arms as though that was the sweetest fate they ever might have prayed for. In the less kind tales, they wasted away. Alone. Unloved. And perhaps, he hated to think.... entirely _forgotten_.  
Not that Equius had ever put much stock into songs and stories. In fact, he’d always had something of a distaste for such frivolities. Perhaps, just perhaps, he had a fleeting moment, as a very small boy (still small enough to be called _small_ , which all in all was not a very wide window of time), where he enjoyed such things. But that flicker found its death early on, when his father expelled any wandering players and bards from their hall with the threat of his broadsword to back him, such frivolities clearly unwelcome. And the young Heir to the rolling hills and great empty plains of the Voidlands had learned quickly that if he was to curry his father’s favor, he’d be wise to learn to dislike them as well. And currying his father’s favor was as necessary for Equius’s survival as breath itself.

And yet there must have been some odd grain of truth to those tales, mustn't there have been? After all, the odd emptiness they spoke of was precisely what Equius found himself feeling now. A hollow, painful ringing in his chest. A terribly awareness of the wide empty space in the bed beside him at night. An ache in his very marrow when certain thoughts came to mind. A ringing, lingering hurt when he remembered how very alone he was. A sensation akin to a metal fist delving into his stomach, drawing up a fistful of his innards and twisting them until Equius simply wanted to scream.  
He’d had war wounds that pained him less.

At first it was fresh, new and raw, and for a time it seemed so gnawing that not an hour passed without him thinking about his grave loss. And then, slowly, over time, it had faded. It had almost seemed to heal as his physical wounds healed - first thickly bandaged and buried, and then slowly scabbing, and then with new skin to grow over the hurt but always leave the mark of what had passed. The hurts dulled over time. But as an old wound sometimes pained, on occasion something would bring her to his mind and the hurts would rip right open again, pain pouring from them not in a torrent but in an oozing, insidious drip that refused to heal for days.  
Equius doubted it would ever quite go away. It had been years now and so far his mind showed no signs of ever forgetting the woman he had loved for a few short, sweet months.

It had been three years since the Battle of the Signless.  
The _final_ Battle of the Signless, Equius might have added. After his men had defeated the rebel army soundly, they had taken the captured leaders back to the Capital and to The Empress. The Signless himself had been executed, though he was quite the talker before they got to that point. He was to be hung by the wrists and left to a slow miserable exposure, but he proved too slow to die and they were forced to end it quickly.  
Or, rather, Equius’s father (in attendance by implied mandate, along with the rest of the noble house heads) had grown tired of the ceaseless jabber and saw fit to end it with a swift arrow to the rebel’s ribs. It had done the trick, though not before rather more peasants in attendance got rather more of an earful than The Empress liked.  
(Even Equius had to admit to himself it was quite the impressive speech, though he’d never say that out loud.)

The Signless’s other aids had met arguably worse fates.  
The nun who had raised the child was taken into bondage and gifted to House Serket at the request of Lady Spinnerette. Equius did not have the imagination to picture what exactly met the nun within the spires of The Web, and he was glad of that. Just the idea made him shudder in quiet revulsion.  
Meanwhile, the Signless’s right-hand-man, the powerful Psiioniic who had made the final battle such a chore, was kept by the Empress herself. There was no good that could have come of that ownership, either. His powers bent to the will of Empress Piexes only added to her formidability. Not that it needed any adding to in the first place.

The fourth of their number was none other than the Signless’s consort. Some half-wild wretch who fought madly when cornered. Equis thought on her with a sinking feeling of shame and horror. She looked very like a member of one of the Zahhak’s banner house families. But she had claimed no affiliation. In fact, it was near impossible to pull any information from the distraught, wailing woman at all.  
She had been sentenced to death, just to give some peace to the dungeons again, if nothing else. But someone had let her free before she got to that point.  
An investigation turned up no sign of the girl who called herself only “His Disciple”. But it did turn up irrefutable evidence of the guilty party: none other than Equius’s own father, The Darkleer Zahhak.

The Empress had intended to execute him next, but the senior Lord Zahhak had escaped, fleeing into exile. The Gods only knew where. Equius certainly didn’t. His public shame and embarrassment proved suitably great for Empress Meenah, who had given Equius her blessing as the new Lord of the Voidlands.

And now, three years of rule had taken their own toll on the man. While his father’s betrayal was no longer a hot source of gossip, it did stain the house, and Equius had to work ever harder to prove his own loyalty. The Empress could be refused nothing, and it had caused House Zahhak great effort and expense. And she ever was a vengeful, petty sort, though the fact that he had won her war for her certainly helped ease the blow.  
And the scars of the years showed more than ever. Equius was no longer a young man, and though his great strength and size had not diminished and he had not weakened, he was beginning to feel the years press around him. His dark, shoulder-length hair was beginning to gray around the temples, and there were the thin spidersilk beginnings of lines around the edges of his eyes now. He was also starting to feel his war wounds on cold mornings, though the ache was usually gone by midday. (The scar on his back felt particularly tight when it occurred to him to think about it.)

And then there was the mental toll.  
The long years had been kind to his social standing and his lands (his corner of the empire was now respectably prosperous) but not so kind to his love life. House Serket was champing at the bit to get on with the marriage arranged between Equius and the first daughter of the assassin house - Vriska Serket. Now that Equius was officially the Lord of the Stronghold and not merely the next in line, they knew that he might have the power to break off the engagement entirely... and that could not be allowed.

In fact, the only reason he hadn’t taken such a drastic action yet was because of the threat that the Serket house posed. Were he to call off the betrothal, they would doubtless pitch a tantrum to end all tantrums. And a Serket tantrum would involve every filthy trick in the book. Equius was a man of honor, and he appreciated open battle, face-to-face. He met the Serket’s methods with great disapproval.

The hulking lord curled his fingers around the stone sill of a window. Equius was, for once, not armored. In his own home, the Zahhak Stronghold, there was no need. Instead he wore thick woollen breeches, a warm long-sleeved tunic that fell below his knees, pulled closed at his waist with a thick leather belt, and tall boots. The wool was dyed the rich navy blue of House Zahhak, as most of his clothing was, and he bore signs of his Lordship in the polished silver buckle of his belt, and in the heavy gold signet ring he wore on the wide first finger of his right hand. He’d had no cause for such shiny displays previously, but he was a lord now, and things were expected of him.  
It was the thick of winter, and the Voidlands were open, wide plains that offered little shelter from the temperature. At this time of year, the Stronghold was quite cold.  
At least it was a fairly mild winter, and snow had been largely avoided. Equius was glad of that much. Though the dark clouds and flurries on the horizons concerned him. Too much snow and the horses around which they had built the economy of this corner of the Empire would suffer. More than a little would keep them from riding, and trap the occupants of House Zahhak within the Stronghold. It had happened before.

But for now, the air was clear. Clear enough, apparently, to not impede messenger birds. The hand that did not clutch the window frame held a crumpled parchment in a tight fist. It would rip and become illegible if he continued to hold it thus, but Lord Zahhak didn’t seem to care. The frustration he felt at this missive did not show in his face, only in the bulging veins and tendons in his gripping hand.

The scroll was of a high-quality parchment and bore a thick, heavy seal of the Empress’s own symbol, stamped into Tyrian Pink wax. Only the royal family was permitted to bear such a color. This was a message directly from the palace. An important missive. A summons...  
 _To a wedding._

The Empress was a widow, but once she’d had a consort - a prince sent to her from the northern kingdom of Prospit; incentive for the much more powerful empire not to attack the smaller mountain nation. He was much older than her, but Empress Meenah took a great liking to him and the alliance had prospered, in spite of the Empire’s long standing preference for Prospit’s sworn enemy, Derse. He amused her or something of that nature. Or so Equius had heard; he’d been young and had never met Prince Sassacre.  
The Prospitian Prince had died some years ago, however, and The Empress had never remarried. Their union was far from a moot point, however, as it had produced a daughter - Princess Feferi, the heiress to the Empire.

Feferi had been betrothed shortly after her birth to the slightly older heir to House Ampora. Unfortunately, the lordling had met an untimely demise at the hands of House Makara, and when the feuding was over, she’d been betrothed instead to the new heir - Eridan Ampora. It was just as good of a match, politically, and they were even nearer in age, near enough to be warded with one another’s families and raised to like one another. The best possible scenario for such a bond.  
And, at last, the pair were of an age to be properly wed.

So naturally a wedding - with all the extravagance and pomp that surrounded it - must occur forthwith! It would be a grand and gaudy affair, Equius was positive. There would be some form of a tournament held - jousts and melees and archery competitions - and a great many feasts. No expense would be spared, and people from all reaches of the kingdom would travel the roads to get to the capital for the event. There were also sure to be foreign dignitaries from the neighboring kingdoms to send their regards and well-wishes for the happy couple. And all of the heirs of the noble houses, the princess’s own generation, would be there. Including Equius.  
Though he had no interest whatsoever in attending.

It had been a year since he’d seen Aradia. Once, they had visited monthly, him riding to her to spend a day or two clasped in her breast, making love or talking or just holding one another in a comfortable silence, and then rushing away to get back to governing. He missed her terribly, but it was better than the year and a half he’d spent without her.  
Only now all communication had gone dark. He did not know where she was, or in what condition. He’d tried to reach her, but without her guidance through the marshes he’d become almost fatally lost. For all Equius knew, Aradia might not even be breathing still, and the thought all but killed him.

He missed her. He wanted her more than he wanted breath, and all else seemed to pale in comparison. How could he witness two people (as in love as they could be expected to be) be bonded when he was denied the same pleasure?

But the letter was not merely an invitation. It was an imperative. All requests from the Empress were such, to one end or another. Lord Zahhak’s presence was requested. Lord Zahhak would attend. That was all there was to it, though he did not anticipate the coming festivities eagerly.

He did not wish to join in the celebration. At moments like this, he did not wish to run his lands, either. In fact, at such times he did not wish any of it. All he wished was to be returned to the pointless days of his search, his hunt for the Signless and his rebel army. He’d so wasted those days, he realized now, thinking that they were the worst of it and when he returned home he would have all the time in the world to spend with his lady-love. But that had not been so. And it was, apparently, not to be. And now, sometimes, he thought that the life he was gifted was wasted on him. Somewhere in the world Aradia was a prisoner, as was he in his own way.  
But he had responsibilities. He had a land to govern, a family name to uphold, personal honor to protect, and an Empress to appease. And so he would submit; Equius was an obedient dog, was he not? He knew better than to bite the hand that held his leash.

Perhaps Aradia was out there yet. All he had to do was _hold on_.


	3. Chapter 3

The fanfare of the wedding was not the end that he would have liked to a long, exhausting ride such as the one he’d just faced. His domain of the Voidlands were the plains near to the border of the vast empire, placing the Stronghold was many leagues from the coastal capital city of Beforus, easily a week of riding. More when accompanied by a retinue, much to Lord Zahhak’s frustration.

And this particular journey had been delayed several times now, for a variety of irritating reasons. First, the initial departure had been delayed when a large chunk of the lord’s stables had fallen ill with some sort of croup-like cough. The horses had not been well enough to leave their stalls, let alone ride, and it was unknown if such a blight was communicable to the attending humans. For a time, Equius (and the members of his household - all in the Voidlands were versed in the craft of horse husbandry; it was their focus above almost all else) had been concerned that they might lose the horses. Blessedly such a thing had not come to pass, but they were pushed back by more than a week.  
Once they finally did manage to get packed and on the road, the wind and snow had finally decided it was going to pick up again. Heavily enough to make the going slow, cold, and miserable. Any unlucky inch of exposed skin grew red and chapped with the bite of the wind and the scrape of the icy shards whipping from the sky. The flat plains offered next to nothing in the way of shelter or protection. The Voidlands had no trees, no mountains... they had low scrub and perhaps a few low craggy outcrops. Everything nature had to fling at them, it flung and there was not a thing to be done for it. They lost precious hours of travel that translated to precious days.  
The movement south to the coast at least had the grace to lead them out of that in time.

The Empire was a strange thing, bloated at the center in the forests and plains, tapering in the south-west to a nearly jabbing two-pronged cost line that seemed to be impaling the sea.  
The southern border wrapped up and around in a gentle sloping circle made by a spine of mountains, forcibly splitting the Empire from their neighbors in the mysterious deep forest kingdom of Derse.  
The Voidlands were at the northern border, a flat political line separating it from the badlands of a nearby kingdom called Prospit. (Equius rather resented the implication of “badlands”, as it was the exact same grass plain on one side of the line as the other - though he’d never been to Prospit, and apparently the rest of it was fertile farmland or something of that like, so mayhaps it was badlands to them. Clearly they didn’t raise horses.)  
The center bloat of the Empire featured a wide range of environments, split by the houses primarily along the lines of natural borders. House Pyrope had control of much of the forests, the Serket house held the foothills and the catacomb stretches that transitioned slowly to those southern mountains. House Ampora took the southern coastal prong and the surrounding riverlands and marshes. Makara house took the desert at the far eastern edge.  
There was a no-man’s-land of space in a vast lake at the end of the river that split the Ampora lands from the Serket lands. On this lake there were a series of islands reserved since even before the rise of the Empire by pacifistic religious orders that held to this day. (Though the current gossip questioned how long they might be permitted to keep their peace, since it had been revealed that it was a nun of the Dolorosa Order that had raised and aided the rebel Signless.)

It was already spring down at the upper coastal point, where Beforus was to be found. It was a slow transition riding into it, but it could be marked when the party would remove their heavy winter cloaks earlier and earlier in the day, until they did not bother to don them at all in the mornings.  
Down here, the air was sweet, fresh with the breeze off the sea and warmed by the intensity of the southern sun.  
Or, at least, the air was sweet until they made it to the city itself.

They saw it first, of course. Beforus was a grand, grand thing, a massive city of dark stone, black and pink. The saltwater here had eroded away mighty cliffs and the strange, ribbed pink stone that had been revealed had been quarried in vast quantities to build the city, complimented by black rock imported from the caves in the east. The architecture of this city favored imposing shear walls that stretched up, up, up beyond all reasonable distance, and then further still. This was complemented by a surfeit of spiky, jabbing spires that twisted into the sky as if they meant to stab the clouds above out of pure spite.  
Equius always found that the city looked rather pleased with itself. He didn’t like it.

The gates to admit them were overly tall and ornate, and required a small legion of operators to pull the chains and turn the cranks to force the doors open. The doors were of shiny, precious black stone, polished to a glaring shine that seemed to suck the light into it, and then carved with scenes of the domination of the Empire (bloody battle, vast armies, and the enslavement of thousands of losers) with swirling, spiking classical abstract patterns to border. And of course the adornment was just a tease compared to the richness within. Empress Meenah was openly fond of and prone to gratuitous grandiosity in her displays.

Once inside the city, however, the visual and the olfactory greatness increased in inverse - as the ornamentations went up, as they went deeper into the thick of the city, the air quality worsened. Such was to be expected in any city, but Equius had managed to avoid them for the past few months, sequestered as he’d recently been within the Stronghold (which stood alone as a fortress, with merely a tiny village at it’s foot). Though no place with so many people in close proximity smelled delightful, it was better out there than it was in a massive, massive city-state such as Beforus.

He’d get used to it over time. Not that he wanted to.

It was made all the worse by the flux of people who were in the city at the moment. Equius had planned an early departure from his Stronghold, meaning to get to Beforus at least a solid two weeks before the beginning of the wedding. Unfortunately, his delays along the road had resulted in his arriving just as the event was beginning. Though the festivities would last for days, it was a bad start for someone as important as himself to run late.

The citizens of Beforus were not _friendly_ types. Perhaps the only ones that made them more suspicious than one another were outsiders. Accustomed to the oppressive control of the Empress on their doorsteps and the constant threat of death from the all-too-hilt-happy city guards, they were wise to trust few.  
Equius never had been a people person, and so of course the city was completely choked with them. Everyone was in town for the wedding, from the most far-flung of hedge knights to to local peasants in to see what they could see, and Beforus was already a densely populated place as it was.  
The lord and his retinue charged through astride their massive horses, and the people did well to hustle out of the way before they were met with a horseshoe to the skull. But because these were city people, and Empress Meenah’s subjects, no less, they were adept at scurrying out of the path of thoughtless nobility. It was practically a sport at this point.

The city was laid out plainly enough, and it was no task to follow the wide main street (cobbled in an alternating pattern of pink and black stone that rather evoked the breaking of waves) up the hill to the palace in the center of the city.  
It was an irritatingly grandiose construction, as was to be expected. The spires were many, twisting corkscrews up into the sky. It seemed as if every possible angle on the castle was turned into a spike, until the whole thing seemed less a building and more a massive chunk of pink coral, broken from it’s undersea growth and shoved into the sandy earth. The Tyrian stone glittered in the sunlight as if it had been encrusted with gems. It very well may have been. The wealth of House Piexes was well-known and well-advertised.

Pink was the color of royalty. A masculine color, fully co-opted (corrupted, some might say) by the matriarchal regime laid down by the Empresses. Everything here seemed to be pink, at least that that was not black or gold. All of the gems, all of the marble, the uniforms of the serving maids and the footmen and the trumpeters who announced the arrival of Lord Zahhak, it was all quite pink. Though it did look very fine indeed on the dark skin of the Piexes Housemembers, it was an exhausting quantity.

‘ _This will come to strain my eyes before long_ ,’ Equius lamented to himself as the castle gates swung wide to admit the party and then snapped shut behind them.  
Pink banners waved from the trumpets as he was announced. His needs were met quickly and with little fuss - The Empress kept her ship tight and the inner-workings well oiled. The horses were taken to be brushed down, fed, and watered as Equius and his men were directed to their rooms.  
Each visiting House was given their own wing, and the Zahhaks were no exception, though theirs was rather smaller. Equius had seen little need for a large party to accompany him, and had far fewer men than any of the other houses. But he trusted each man he’d brought with his very life, and was unconcerned by this. They would defend him if it was needed, and the lord himself could out take more opponents or potential assassins than most bodyguards.

It was late in the afternoon when they arrived, offering Equius much-needed time to freshen up. He cleaned himself in the room, running cold water over his face, neck, hands and up his arms, and then he changed into his courtly attire. The fashions of the court came and went, but dark colors were always a must. His leggings were onyx, then, and the blue of his tunic was so deep it threatened black in lesser light.  
It reminded him painfully of a blue that he’d seen before, on a dress of fine silk that had once been worn by the most beautiful woman he’d ever had the pleasure to know.

His innards twisted in pain at the thought of Aradia.  
As he’d promised her when they’d parted, he had turned to the Empress in his need, desperate for assistance. But the had brushed off her war hero, saying that the use of a peasant wench was limited to keeping him company while on a war assault. Wouldn’t it be such an insult, she’d suggested, to keep himself busy with such when the Serkets had already made such a generous offer of their eldest daughter? A respectable match he’d be _so very wise_ to keep.  
The bond of the Serkets and the Piexes was no secret, cemented by the Empress’s favored attendant: the second daughter of the House, held as a ward. From what Equius had heard, Aranea Serket was a remarkably intelligent girl, and endlessly devoted to her Empress. Her Imperial Condescension would not want anyone snubbing her current favorite noble family.  
So he’d been left on his own, and lacking a blessing to search on his own he’d been limited in his ability to do so. All his best efforts - search parties and scouts - had turned up with nothing. Perhaps if he’d had the spy power of House Serket he’d have managed to dig up _something_ , but he lacked even that much. He was on his own.

Though Equius was a loyal man, and not the sort to betray his nation nor his Empress with ease, his appreciation for the woman had decreased steadily since then. Even though he’d found (and then lost) Aradia, the lack of aid in the matter from the Empress did not enhance his opinion of her.  
Following a precedent laid down by his father and grandfather and all the generations before them, he’d never much cared for the two highest Houses, though he did respect their power.  
 _”Never trust a man who makes a living off of_ fish _,”_ Equius could almost hear his grandfather growling in his rough bass tone. After all, _true_ men were made of sterner stuff than that. And most of the Amporas couldn’t even _ride_ properly.... a disgrace House Zahhak couldn’t possibly forgive.

And as for House Piexes... Equius’s father had once claimed (when he’d been terribly, terribly drunk; it was not an admission likely to be made sober) that the subtle dislike was because they were mere _women_ laying claim to the throne, disregarding men of the house like they were nothing but consorts. But Equius suspected it was more than that. There were too many houses that let birth order lead entirely, regardless of the sex of the heir, for that to be all there was to it. He had to wonder if in the ages of antiquity, when the Houses were not Houses but each their own tiny kingdom, the Piexes had broken the Zahhak horse lords to their will, and the Zahhaks had never been able to forgive them for it. They must have resented them ever since.

No matter the cause, he too disliked the two most noble, but he was far from fool enough to admit that. So he let his distaste and frustration fester deep enough below the surface that it was unlikely to ever see the light of day. They may have gotten under his skin, but that would be where they would remain: under his skin and far from the surface.

But for now he would need to push all of that (and the idea of Aradia) out of his mind. He had more important matters to attend to. He was clean and dressed, and a swift wet comb and a tightly knotted leather thong to neaten and tie back his hair into a ponytail at the nape of his neck was all that it took to make him fully presentable for court. Equius made certain that the wrought silver sigil of his house, the angular stylized arrow, was pinned carefully at his breast, keeping his lightweight cloak fastened securely closed.

He opened the door to his apartments and stepped into the hall. One nod to his men was all the prompting it took. The door was locked firmly behind him (no one ought to have dared to attempt rifling through his things, but no reason to tempt anyone) and two of his guards were left to stand watch over the Zahhak wing. Another pair accompanied Lord Zahhak as he set a quick clip down through the honeycomb of halls that led to the throne room. Equius needed no guide; he’d been here enough know.


	4. Chapter 4

_Eleven months ago._

Aradia Megido stood at her window, watching her true love gallop astride his noble steed. It was a terribly romantic picture, wasn’t it? The young maiden in the tower, trapped by forces of evil, but secure in the knowledge that she would be rescued by her hero gallant. Only she was no maid, and he was something rather more than a hero.  
First of all, he was going to wrong way. Rather than rushing towards her at full-tilt, he was hurrying away from her tower prison, returning to his own domain. After all, he could not stay. He had his own responsibilities, and a people to look after. And she had her own master to serve. Though it pained them both, their visits could never linger longer than a day or two. And if there was a way for her to be saved, they had not yet found it. She was trapped.

But not for much longer. Not if she had her way of it. This last visit (though primarily spent between one another’s legs - it was sorely difficult to keep one’s hands to oneself when one was in love) had a purpose. Equius had brought her a rare gift, something she’d been denied as long as she’d been imprisoned... _a blade _. Her master, the enigmous Scratch, was a master of dark magics. He was training her in the same and claimed that weapons were a hindrance to her study. He did not use them, and if his unwilling pupil was to learn properly, she’d need to abandon her savage use of them. Nevermind the six months she’d spent training with Lord Zahhak in the art of swordplay.  
Some days she would use her fireplace poker to repeat old drills, stepping, jabbing, feinting, and parrying a dozen imaginary blades. In her mind Aradia fended off her invisible foes and fought her way right to the gates of the Stronghold and into the arms of her waiting lover. But a fireplace poker was no true sword, and she could feel her skills atrophy. But there was nothing for it; not a single blade larger than a letter opener was to be had in the Clocktower, and even that was one small thing, locked away in Scratch’s closely-guarded study. Aradia would never get near it.__

__But now, _now_ she had something. Now her lover had brought her the greatest of all gifts: a dagger. It was small enough to be hidden with ease in her skirts, but wide and sharp and deadly. It would slip with ease through her master’s ribs, puncturing a lung or - if the gods were kind, his black, shriveled excuse for a heart - and end him, and all his magics along with him. Once Scratch was dead, Aradia could flee, escaping her prison and finally being with Equius at last. They could finally have the life they’d planned together, the life they’d been denied by the cruelty of fate and poor fortune._ _

___Before long Equius and his hot-blooded horse were out of sight, hidden in the mists of the fen. She’d thought hard, sending his the ideas and the images he would need to escape the maze laid out by her master. He’d make it through safely, of that Aradia was sure.  
She was clothed for her day, her green dress (Aradia had many clothes now, more than she’d ever owned, and all were in some variation of green and white) wrapped tightly and layered over shifts and skirts and thick woolen socks. It was early winter, but it grew bitter cold quickly at the edge of the gray northern sea. The little mageling was bundled as best as she could be in the damp, chill castle. Her hair she left unbound, unable to bring herself to tie it back knowing how much Equius enjoyed running his fingers through the wild locks. Her master would just have to deal with her ‘lingering rude blood’ as he always blamed it.  
Her lowborn status never had pleased Scratch, Aradia noticed, nor did the way she clung to it. She still hadn’t warmed to being called “Lady Megido”. She was no lady. Why play act?_

___The dagger was a simple thing to slip into the folded waist of her dress. She had enough layers on to prevent an accidental stab or slice, but Aradia wound her handkerchief around the blade all the same. One easy little slip of the hand and she’d have it. And then it would be nothing more than to wait for her master to turn his back for a moment too long. He did, after all, and fairly often; either he trusted her or, more likely, thought himself above any attempts on his life.  
Aradia absolutely relished the thought of teaching him better than that foolish assumption. His regret and her blade would be the last things he’d ever feel. And then she would run, fast and hard and -  
The idea of her master twanged in the back of her mind, as if a chord had been struck by some tightly-wound string instrument, not quite out of tune, but just implying, somehow threatening it. The woman knew at once what it was: a summons. Her presence was desired for the day’s lessons. It was a familiar pattern; Scratch was nothing if not punctual, and Aradia had grown accustomed to following his schedule._

__The mageling’s hands smoothed down the front of her dress, making quite certain that there was no bulge or wrinkle to give away her only weapon. Satisfied, she tucked an errant lock of hair back behind her ear and left her room, sweeping quickly through the front room of her quarters and then out into the hall. She had the halls of the Clocktower so well memorized that it took no thought at all to wind through the long passageways, slippered feet padding soundlessly over the thick rugs.  
When she arrived at the door to Scratch’s study, she raised her hand to knock, only to be cut off when the door opened. She ought to have come to expect this by now, yet somehow it never failed to make her jump, just a bit. It kept Aradia on her toes, just where Scratch liked her._ _

__“Come in, my dear,” calmly called the voice within. The pale, bony man was wrapped close in warm white robes, the fabrics thin but layered. A glinting green emerald rested heavy at the base of his throat, sparking as if from some force within. His paleness stood out against the oppressive green of the room in which he sat. Most of the Clocktower had some variation of shade, but not here. Here utterly everything was green. It made Aradia a little sick, to be true. But she muscled it down and entered with a respectfully bowed head. She could not step but an inch out of line or her plan would be spoiled, and she knew it.  
“Good morning, my lord,” Aradia said as the door clicked softly shut behind her. “What tasks have you for me today?”_ _

__Her master was sitting calmly at his desk, a mighty wooden thing lacquered green and set with a gigantic slab of green marble at the top. He sorted and stacked parchments, filing scrolls neatly away into green boxes and snapping clasps open here, shut there, all for the sake of his ever-obsessive neatness.  
“Open the curtains for me, won’t you, my dear?” he request-ordered without looking up at his servant. Aradia curtly nodded once and swished across the room to draw the thick green velvet wide, hooking and tying them back with green silk sashes. Misty ocean light flooded the dark room, brightening it considerably. The expensive glass panes on the window remained shut, keeping the warmth of the fire in the hearth from escaping and leaving the room to chill._ _

___“And now, my lord?” Aradia asked, standing in silhouette in front of the windows.  
“Now take these,” Scratch instructed, a teetering mountain of scrolls sparking green and lighting-yellow with energy and then raising off of the desk to vanish in the air and reappear at Aradia’s feet with a _snap_. “And sort them,” he finished. He still hadn’t looked up at her.  
In the manner of any long-suffering, overworked serving maid, Aradia sighed as she ascented. “Yes, my lord.”_

__She sat and got to work, reorganizing the scrolls based on their wax seals. It was not her place to open them to scan the information hidden within; the shade and imprint borne by the wax would be more than enough to inform her (and her master) who had sent what.  
A letter from a general in the Felt, Lord English’s own army. A message from a spy hidden in the palace of the Empress. A stack of missives from the kingdom of Derse (some of which were sealed with a carelessness that amazed even Aradia). And a set of letters from Scratch himself, ready to be sent out with magic or with the Clocktower’s small army of messenger birds._ _

__When that pile was done there was another to be seen to, and another. But an hour of this and Aradia was growing restless. Tired and back cracking, the servant stood, bearing several scrolls in her arms, and crossed the room to a marble scroll-sorting shelf. She slipped the documents carefully into the slanted diamond-shaped holes, taking care to place them each in their proper slot. Her heart ticked several beats too fast as she steeled herself for her next move._ _

___As she crossed back to her place kneeling on the floor, she hesitated by the window. Aradia stood still there for a moment, seeming to hover in her place. And then, careful and practiced, she tipped her head slowly to one side and took a few steps, halting and cautious, towards the window. “...Odd...” she murmured softly, only just loud enough for her master to pick up on a bewildered sound, but not enough for him to understand all.  
“I beg your pardon?” Scratch inquired. Aradia suppressed her triumphant smirk with some difficulty.  
“My lord...” she said hesitantly, turning back to force him to look up (which he did), and then turning to look back out the window and she took another step and brought up a hand to point. “What _is_ that?”_

__Just as she had prayed, her master stood, pushing out his ebony carved chair and stepping out from behind his desk, appearing at her side in only a moment. It never failed to surprise Aradia how small the man was, really. Only about level with her, and she was notably petite. But his size did nothing to lessen the danger he posed, nor did it do anything to lessen her desire to do what needed to be done._ _

__A careful hand began to slip down to her hidden prize as the other continued to gesture. “ _That_ , my lord.... out in the sea. It looks like... like... well I can’t quite describe it.”  
As Scratch leaned forward for a closer look, pale green eyes narrowing as he peered outwards, Aradia drew back a step that might be assumed to be respectful. She could see his back. It was now or never._ _

___“I don’t know what you’re seeing, girl. There’s nothing there,” Scratch was beginning to sound irritated.  
“Oh no, sir,” Aradia argued, voice softening and dropping an octave. She drew the blade from her skirts, letting the handkerchief fall away and flutter to the ground. “It’s right out there. And it looks like death itself.” Her fingers curled tight around the hilt and Aradia brought the blade up and out, slamming it hard into Scratch’s back. A moment of grand, grand triumph rose in Aradia’s breast. She had _done_ it. She had _won_. Scratch would die and she would be free! The dagger sunk in as if his flesh was soft as a pillow.  
In fact... it didn’t feel like flesh at all. Aradia had stabbed a man before, and this was entirely different. A jolt ran up her arm as if she’d struck her funny bone hard on something._

__Aradia cried out and let go of the dagger, which protruded from Scratch’s back... and then the man, who had not reacted at all to being stabbed, slowly stood and turned, looking at the shocked young woman. His face was impassive as ever, but his thin, pale lips did twitch and then quirk down into a mildly annoyed frown after a moment.  
The dagger slipped out of Scratch’s back as if it had done no harm at all. Sparking with energy, it floated around until it hovered in the air between them. Then, easy as you please, Scratch reached out a hand and plucked it delicately from the air. He stared at it for a moment, and then up at the shaking, terrified Aradia, who had backed away and was now clutching the marble edge of the desk to support her trembling legs._ _

__“No...” she murmured in shock, “No. _How?_ ”  
Scratch clicked his tongue and shook his head at her like she was a naughty child. “Aradia,” he said disapprovingly, “I expected more of you.” He turned the dagged calmly over in his hand. “I had supposed from the beginning that you might try to kill me. But something so crass as this? Really, child. I taught you better.” Sparks rose from his hand and surrounded the weapon, concealing it from sight for a moment. When they receded what had once been her ticket to freedom was only dust, the crushed filaments of metal floating to the ground at Scratch’s feet._ _

__Scratch took a step forward and Aradia drew away, pressing herself back into the table. It did no good of course. She was trapped. _’Always have a backup plan,’_ came Equius’s belated reminder in the back of her head. The thought and her failure brought her no peace.  
“And much as I expected you to make an attempt on your life, I had every intention of ending yours, eventually.” Scratch shook his head slowly and began rolling back his long, draping sleeves. “It’s a pity, really. I had wanted to wait a little longer; you had more use you could have given.” He sighed as if only mildly annoyed by this. Like she was a minor inconvenience. Green lightning began to spark between his fingers. “There’s nothing for it, I suppose. The plan will just have to be pushed a few months ahead of schedule.”_ _

___But Aradia was not about to go down without a fight. She had spit in her yet. Her hands gripped the desk edge with white knuckles, and one heel braced against the leg. She pushed hard and used the force to launch herself forward, charging and lashing out at Scratch with magic of her own.  
Great red orbs encircled her hands and she sent bolts forth, aiming to smash in that pale, smirking face.  
Scratch ducked to the side of one bolt and wave another away with a queenly twist of his hand. The ducked one smashed into the wall, sending hairline fractures shooting through the green coppery stone, while the other hit the floor, largely drained of power by scratch’s counter-flux, and fizzled out, managing only a singe on the rug and at the hem of Scratch’s robes._

__Aradia had known her magic would be no good against him. But of course she had to try. She sent a half dozen more useless bolts, all missing or doing nothing meaningful to their intended target.  
“Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be, Lady Megido,” Scratch sighed. At last the woman gave up and the two stood, staring across the room at one another. Aradia’s eyes were wide and wild with fright and the horrible knowledge of her oncoming death. Scratch’s were heavily-lidded, seeming very nearly bored. “At least accept your end with grace.”_ _

__The mage’s hands raised again, directed at the drained young woman. Aradia took a deep breath and a gulp. Thinking on Equius, she stood up a little straighter, raising her chin. She’d failed. She’d failed Equius and herself. But she would not go out cowering. She would die on her feet, with her eyes open. She could give them both that much, in the end._ _

__“There’s a good girl,” Scratch smiled and released the green bolts. They enveloped Aradia. And then she was no more._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh  
> Did we just lose a main character?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wjhoops! Sorry, guys, busy day yesterday. It's here now!

_Now._

Resplendent in pink, jet, and gold, the Empress seemed perfectly at ease on her throne. She leaned casually to one side, an elbow on the arm of her chair, the long, lacquered fingernails of her first two fingers drumming against her temple, keeping tempo to some beat inside her head. Most likely a death march for someone. Whenever she moved, the gold of her rings, her brangles, her necklaces, her spiked tiara, caught the light and glinted like threats.  
Her scepter was gold, too, a massive, heavy trident that spiked on both ends. Her other hand held it effortlessly, balancing it across her lap as if it were not half so heavy as it looked. She’d had practice in looking so relaxed.  
She was a beautiful creature, curved with an almost unbelievable dip from her bust to her hips. Through some dark math or magic she was perfect, her lush dark hair playing over her cool brown skin (each curl and pore without mar), tracing her thickly-cut curves down to her dainty slippered feet. The dress she wore was black, hemmed with pink, and cut to a dangerous cling. Because the gods forbid that her wide hips and heavy breasts not be highlighted. 

She didn’t bother to rise. Why ever would she? She walked around as though she owned the place because she _did_. Not even one of the sub-leaders of her domain was worthy of her taking the trouble of standing.  
Meeting the Empress was a practiced custom for Lord Zahhak. He’d met her on many on occasion, and knew her as well as any head of House could be expected to. He simply swept into the room, bowed so low his spine creaked in protest (he was getting old for this, though he greatly disliked that thought), and stepped forward to kiss the Empress’s ring when she gestured for him.

“Lord Zahhak,” she said. Her voice was deep, rich, and throaty. Absolutely cultivated for the purpose of sounding as grand as she possibly could, and also as intimidating as possible. It did its job well. “What a pleasure to see you again.” The ghost of a smile flicked over her berry-painted lips, and it only served to make her more frightening. Was it a smile of indulgence and favor, or a smile to gift wrap a plot and a knife aimed even now at Lord Zahhak’s back? Equius didn’t know. No one really ever could know - that was the way of their ruler. 

“The pleasure is mine alone, my lady,” Equius said obsequiously, taking a few steps backwards. She wore so many rings that it would have been difficult to guess which one was meant to be kissed, and it was only the providence of impeccable breeding and training that allowed Equius to know better. Another man would have been in a far more dangerous position. Every move made around the Empress needed to be planned with care, lest it be the last move the offender ever made.

For a moment, Equius thought there would be more to it. After all, the Empress must have something to say to him. She _always_ had things to say. Many things. She wouldn’t possibly leave it there. And yet she did just that, smiling softly and gesturing him to back away with a simple flick of her hands.

The fact that she had nothing to say might have been worse than anything else. Empress Meenah Peixes was not an easy woman to judge, and she was full of passive-aggressive slights. What seemed an off-hand comment at one time might turn out to be a grave threat. A flare of temper might only be a show to keep her underlings (and everyone was an underling to the Empress) on their toes.  
It made the lords and ladies of her domain paranoid, which was exactly what she wanted. And the Empress had a tendency to get what she wanted.

Trying not to let his rising alarm show in his spine, Equius held himself firm as he nodded, smiled politely, and backed away, integrating himself into the gathering of people milling about to watch and socialize as the Empress held court.  
Here were the figures of the Empire, the great power players. Or, interestingly enough, the next great power players. The majority of the heads of house were aging, each in their own stages of stepping-down. For most that meant sending their offspring, their heirs, to court in their name and in the name of their House. Equius, now thirty-three, was older than any of the others in his generation. The next nearest were Lady Vriska (thirty-one) and Lord Gamzee (twenty-nine). Everyone else was much younger, more on par with where Aradia would be by now.  
In a way, the elder generation’s ability to cling to their seats by the roots of their nails was nigh impressive. But it was the modern age, was it not? People were living so much longer now. It was only to be expected.  
Why, the Empress herself looked as fresh as a maid (or she might have, were it not for the vague sense of deceit that accompanied her great beauty), though rumor aged her well into her fifties, if not even age sixty. A mixture of hair henna, a dozen mixtures for her skin, and magics wove the beauty of the Empress... or so rumor alleged. Equius was no expert; he couldn’t possibly know on sight what potions a woman applied to her face. His eyes were not trained in seeking those tells. Still, if the condition she looked to be in was half to truth, she would be around to rule for another decade yet, if not more. The teenaged Princess Feferi would just have to wait.

Part of curiosity and part of wariness, Lord Zahhak’s blue eyes darted around the massive chamber, wondering just where the princess - and all of the other House Heads and heirs - might be concealing themselves. There was no law to say they all had to be there, but the odds were great that he’d find them someplace near, at least the more sociable ones.  
Cortiers mingled in the grand chamber of the throne room. The leather soles of Equius’s boots tread over the ornate, painstakingly polished pink-tinted stone of the throne room floor. It was an impressive thing, inlaid with hammered gold worked into the shapes of all the great houses’ sigels... with the Peixes stylized _H_ -like sign at the head position and by far the largest, of course, directly at the foot of the Empress’s dias.  
The walls of this chamber were feet thick and steady as the rest of the palace... as the whole city, in fact, mighty and solid and unlikely to crumble for the next thousand thousand years. Those walls and ground held up the huge walls and the massive, vaulted ceiling. The building was a flaunting of wealth, a study in grandeur, directly in line with the Piexes fashions.  
Dark and ornate, just as Empress Meenah favored it. Some might even dare to name it _gaudy_... but the speakers of such truths rarely kept their tongues or heads long enough to tell others.) There was even a giant statue of the Empress in a particular stairwell here, made of solid gold, crafted when the Empress was still but an Heiress, waiting for her time to ascend to the throne of her birthright.

She must not have been much older at the time than Princess Feferi was now. What was she then? A maid of sixteen? That sounded about right. A glance in an odd direction revealed the princess then, sheltered in a scalloped alcove in the back wall, behind and to the right of her royal mother.  
Her appearance was less after the court’s style, choosing instead to match the rustic fashions popular with those living nearer the coast. Her dress was off-white, pure and girlish, over a pink long-sleeved kirtle. Where the cut was simple, the fabrics were costly and the technique impressive. And of course the princess was absolutely dripping with finery. Her long, thick hair (a lighter shade than her mother’s; fawn notes replacing the reddish mauve that further suggested the Empress was coloring hers through artificial means) was twisted into loops and curls bound with golden nets. Gold glinted and gems sparkled from her arms, her wrists, her neck, her waist. Every place that might have a bangle or chain did.

At the princess’s side was her betrothed, Lord Eridan Ampora. Lord Ampora was a case of some interest to the other Heads of House, including Equius, for his strange departure from the traditions. House Ampora was perhaps the only house more tied to the sea than House Piexes, holding dominion over the southern coasts and all the islands that dotted the sea surrounding. They also openly practiced piracy (“aggressive naval tactics”) against foreign ships, threatening to sink any ship that did not pay them proper tribute. It was a blatant extortion racket, but it had made them wealthy. And they, in turn, had made the Empire wealthy. The ships of Derse and Prospit could only pay what was demanded and pray to The Knight for protection from the wrath of the Amporas.  
Due to the duality of sea and shore, the Amporas were forced to adapt. Most born into the House found from a young age that they were inclined to one side or the other. Either they were those with saltwater in their veins, craving the waves and suffering the itch of a foot desperate to wander when left on land too long... or they were more solid, grounded sorts born to keep the affairs of the House in order while others were at sea securing their wealth. One side could not exist without the other, and so the House kept itself in check.

The current Head, the young and ferocious Orphaner Dualscar, was not suited to be Head. He never had been. He craved the ocean and would not be pulled to land for any but the most vital of functions. He had a dozen women in various ports but no wife and no heir. And it had seemed that his younger brother and standing heir, Cronus, was following in his footsteps, a fact which pleased House Ampora and concerned everyone else a great deal.  
But Cronus Ampora had been a fairly wild young man, known for his whoring and drinking and gambling... and he was a sloppy drunk. One evening and a goblet of red sloshed all over a high-ranking Makara had lead to his death at the end of a club.  
Naturally House Ampora had sought vengeance, but no burning fortresses and raided villages would bring back their heir.  
Instead, talk had arisen of the responsibility falling to the bookish, land-hugging third son of House Ampora - a lad named Eridan. Without Cronus, Eridan would gain their corner of the Empire and a royal betrothal to boot. A betrothal that might one day make him Emperor - or at least consort to the new Empress.  
So the (allegedly cowardly, and certainly awkward) young Lord Ampora stood to inherit more than his birthright ever would have indicated. He was a lucky little thing, that much was obvious. And he followed around his fiancée like a dog, ever lapping at scraps from her hands and snivling at her feet. And she was no better, showing blatant affections for him in public. It offended Lord Zahhak more than a touch; even he and Aradia had not been so open, even at the end.

But it seemed that other people did not match his opinion so closely. “I’m surprised that you aren’t showing the same affection to your own betrothed, Lord Zahhak.” Equius turned quickly at hearing the high, sharp voice.  
 _Sharp._ Everything about this woman was _sharp_ : her voice (which bordered on grating), her high cheekbones and skinny pinching joints and stabbing hands, the tip of her cane (which she used to her full advantage, claiming innocence and pleading her sight), her laugh, and her acid wit. Lady Terezi, beloved daughter of House Pyrope, stood calmly by Equius’s side.

How she came to find herself there was a carefully crafted mystery. After all, she had suffered from weak eyes since birth, and an atrocious accident received while a ward of House Serket as a child had left her almost entirely blind. She could still make out vague shapes and colors, according to her, but what she truly could or could not see was closed information, known only to Terezi herself.  
But naturally she had her bodyguards a step behind on either side of herself at all times, so it was folly to assume her helpless or think that she wouldn’t know exactly where to walk and whom to visit. If she tripped or seemed to make some blunder, it was only ever because she wanted you to think she was helpless. It was a mistake Equius refused to make.

“Lady Pyrope,” Equius greeted with a rare honest smile, turning to her and inclining his head, accepting the offered hand and lightly brushing her knuckles with his lips. “How delightful to see you again.”  
“If only I could say the same, Lord Zahhak,” the noblewoman jabbed lightly. She often mentioned and make light of her blindness... perhaps a little too often, if anything. But who would call her on such? She was smiling now, displaying fine white teeth with alarmingly sharp canines, and it seemed sincere enough to set Equius at ease. “But that rockslide you call a voice is always a welcome sound.” She withdrew her hand and set it on the ornately carved head of her cane, shaped into the head of a dragon, House Pyrope’s favored creature, much as horses were chosen by the Zahhak’s. But rather than trading in the same (all dragons had gone extinct generations ago, that was widely known, and now lived on only in tales to terrify peasant children into their place) they instead specialized in Dragonknights. The Dragonknights wore horrifying wrought helms and dealt in flame as much as in iron and steel.

Two stood behind her even then. Equius could just see the eyes of one of them, peering out through the slanted eye-slots in his helm. His eyes looked grey in the shadow, beady and intense in what looked like anger. He also stood just a half-step closer to Lady Pyrope, seeming just a bit more protective and a bit more wary. It seemed odd to Lord Zahhak, but he slipped the thought back into his mind whilst he focused on conversing with the noblewoman herself.

“How is your family, Lady Pyrope?” he questioned, sounding casual. He longed to cut to more vital matters, but Terezi Pyrope would take offense just for the sake of taking offense if he did that.  
“Very well, thank you,” she responded, sounding gleeful. “My sister is handling our lands marvelously.”  
“And is Lady Latula joining you on this venture?” inquired the lord.  
Lady Terezi shook her head. “Lady Latula is quite consumed with her new post, I’m afraid. So instead she sends me and well-wishes to all who deserve them.” She smirked.  
Latula Pyrope was Terezi’s elder by five or six years, and though she seemed a touch too wild and her methods too radical to manage her inheritance. But now, a year after their lady mother’s untimely death, it seemed she was doing fine. Neophyte Pyrope, The Red Glare (so named for her striking crimson hair and the way her eyes seemed to flash when she’d won some victory), had fallen and broken her neck under what could only be called suspicious circumstances whilst visiting with House Serket.

“That’s fine news indeed,” Equius nodded, “Does it seem that she will be producing a natural heir any time soon?” At the moment Terezi stood to inherit should something befall her sister, but with Lady Latula’s recent marriage to a powerful (if lowly-born - but being the smallest of the Great Houses, the Pyropes might be forgiven that) Psiioniic scholar, that might change at any time.  
Terezi shook her head. “Not at the moment. But one never knows.” She didn’t seem offended at the question, and Equius doubted that she would have been. Latula had always been her crippled sister’s chief advocate, and Equius couldn’t imagine that Terezi could ever wish her elder ill.

“And speaking of betrothals and the production of heirs,” Terezi began calmly, tracing circles over the flagstones with the barbed tip of her cane, “You’ll be leaving House Zahhak in a terribly precarious spot if you don’t see to such matters in short order.”  
Equius frowned. This was not where he’d meant to steer this exchange.  
As if sensing this, Lady Pyrope looked up and grinned at him. “Not to pry into your personal matters, Lord Equius,” she added, “I only wonder as I’ve heard so little news. And you know how vital my dear, dear Lady Vriska is to me.”

Oh Equius knew all right. House Serket and House Pyrope had warred and aligned in cycles for generations upon generations. Once upon a time, House Ptrope had contributed to the royal navy.... until House Serket pillaged and sunk every last one of their ships. House Pyrope had retaliated by burning Serket lands and raizing dozens of their villages. At one point they even went so far as to reduce the Serket capital to ashes. It was really only the influence of House Piexes that prevented the two from declaring outright war on one another.  
This generation had tried to avoid further bloodshed by exchanging wards. The eldest Serket daughter and the younger Pyrope daughter were of an age, after all. And so the two had largely been raised together, encouraged to be as close as sisters. It had worked... after a fashion. Though now it was mostly intense hatred concealed under a thin and appallingly false neer of adoration.

“I actually have not seen my dear fiancée since I’ve arrived,” Equius quickly tried to shift the meaning of the discussion, “Are the Serkets not in attendance?” Such a snub was unthinkable.  
Terezi shook her head, short-cropped red hair swishing about her neck. “No. Shockingly, Zahhak, someone managed to be later than you. But at least my dear sister had the foresight to send word of her tardiness ahead.”  
Equius could have slapped himself; how could a simple messenger bird not have occurred to him before? “I see. And did my lady provide reason for her lateness?” he asked, raising a brow.  
“It wasn’t addressed to me,” Terezi said, picking at the long sleeve of her scarlet and teal dress. “How might I know?”  
All Equius had to do was cross his arms over his barrel chest and wait. Both he and Terezi knew that she knew better than that, and by demonstrating that he trusted her to know more, he was worthy of her revealing what he needed to know. It was ever a game at court, which was why Equius hated it so, but that certainly did not mean that he didn’t know how to play.

After a moment, seemingly satisfied with the cleanliness of her dress, Terezi thoughtfully went on, “...Of course, one does hear things...”  
“Doesn’t one just,” Equius agreed, nodding to urge her onwards.  
“I seem to have picked up the idea someplace that my dear sister’s party was delayed in thanks to the arrival and subsequent addition of a few new guests,” Terezi moved her head up to face Equius. “Of course, who’s to say? We won’t really know until they arrive, I think. And the guests could be anyone at all. I for once don’t know.”  
The lord smiled a touch. “Your knowledge, as always, is as valued as it is impressive,” he said, only partially to flatter. “I imagine we shall see whenever they do arrive.”  
“It ought not be more than another day or two, though it’s a shame they may miss any of the celebrations,” Terezi went on, only to be paused by a soft cough at her side.

The woman turned her head to face the closer of her two bodyguards, the one with the small eyes that glared so burningly into Equius. The Dragonknight beckoned Lady Terezi near and murmured something in her ear when she leaned in. Equius could not make out a single word. It all sounded like growled gibberish to him.  
Terezi sighed, rolled her clouded eyes, and nodded. Turning back to Equius, she said, “I’m afraid I shall have to bite this short, Lord Zahhak. But I’ll be _seeing_ more of you around.” She inclined her head, as did Equius, neither quite needing to bow.  
“Until then, Lady Pyrope,” he said as he watched her turn on her heel and start away with her guards in her wake.

“Oh!” she stopped suddenly short, turning back and forcing her Dragonknights to rush out of her line of conversation.  
Equius tilted his head curiously. “Yes?”  
A red tongue darted out to flick thoughtfully over her lips. “You _will_ be riding in the joust again this year, won’t you, Zahhak?” Terezi asked. “I’ll be most disappointed if you don’t. I hear you cut quite the figure.”  
Ah yes. This. In all honesty, Equius didn’t _want_ to ride. But his foolish younger self had gone and set a stupid precedent. To step down now would be viewed as weak. And Equius could not afford to be seen as weak. He lightly cleared his throat. “I shall be riding, yes. Have no fear, Lady Terezi.”

Her face split into a wide grin. “I thought so. I’m sure that news will gladden many people. I for one will look forward to it. Good day, Zahhak!” And finally Lady Pyrope turned again and vanished into the crowds and out of sight.

Equius breathed a sigh of relief. No Vriska for a day or so, he was not the latest of guests, and Lady Pyrope still seemed fond enough of him to be counted as a proper ally in all senses. It seemed like good news. But the Serkets still gave him pause. What sort of guest could Vriska possibly be bringing? Whatever this meant, Equius doubted it would be anything good.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I miss a day again?  
> I did. Oops.  
> Finals are scary. I'm sorry.  
> This chapter is confusing. *whispers* Just roll with it.

_Two months ago._

“I don’t like you.”

The young woman looked up from where she stood, waiting and attentive, against the wall in the hallway. She raised one perfectly groomed black eyebrow, gently tilted red-brown eyes glancing over to the speaker.  
Vriska Serket stood in the center of the hallway, not even attempting to be subtle. She was as bold as brass, that one. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she stood with both feet firmly on the ground, as if digging into the cold stones for a better brace, like she was expecting an attack. But then, those who were always primed to attack would be stupid not to be prepared for one, too.

The halls of The Web were long, dark and winding. It was almost as if the Serket family _wanted_ their guests to become hopelessly lost within the caverns. They probably did. It was actually a fairly inspired defense tactic: even if their enemies did make it inside, they would stumble around in circles and stay busy for as long as it took for the noble residents to run into the catacombs behind the fortress and escape with their lives.  
The Web was part castle, part cave. The Serket capital was half carved into the mountains that defended its back. It was a risky move, and nobody quite knew how it would turn out even now. The complex architecture had taken decades to complete, and was only finished a few generations back, There were still connecting caverns unexplored, filled with deadly giant spiders and the Gods only knew what else.  
Though it might be argued that The Web’s human residents were its most deadly by far. After all, spiders had poison, but not the cunning to slip it into your drink. At least the spiders were honest in that way.

The young woman tilted her head passively to one side, as if mildly interested in what the noblewoman was telling her... only mildly. She regarded Vriska like she was not worth more time than it took to be a diversion from the boredom of her wait.  
She glanced over at the (still firmly shut) door behind her, and then back to Lady Vriska. Small feet in their green slippers not making a sound on the stone, she started walking towards Vriska, running her hand along the wall all the way. The mountains that gave The Web its backbone were right with thick veins of cobalt, lending everything in the fortress a metallic blue sheen. Even the darkness was blue here.

The young woman’s carefully filed fingernails clicked across the pores and divots in the cool stone. She inclined her head towards Lady Vriska when the noblewoman opened her mouth to run it off further, but she did not stop her slow pace. Vriska seemed disquieted by this and took a few steps forward.  
“Didn’t you hear me, girl?” she demanded, “I said _I don’t like you_. When a woman of House Serket insults you, girl, you answer!”  
But the young woman in her light green dress did no such thing, only closed in on Vriska. Not one to take well to being cornered, Vriska took it upon herself to finish closing the gap, stopping near enough for a comparison of height. (And the Serket heir won that by a good head and neck.)

The young woman stopped at last, but remained eerily silent, looking up at the other. Vriska Serket was not a beautiful woman. She was tall, especially for a female, matching the height of most men with ease (a trait she’d taken from her mother). And she was sharply featured, with a pointed nose and a long face. Her hair was yellow-blonde, not soft but wild in its curls, which she only barely made an effort to tame back with a leather thong. There was an unconcealed glint of spite in her electric blue eyes. Perhaps most interestingly, she had only one hand.  
Her right arm had been lost, mangled in a particularly nasty “accident” she’d suffered as a ward of House Pyrope. This being shortly after Terezi Pyrope had suffered her own “accident” while in the care of House Serket. Really both girls had been lucky to escape with as little damage as they had.  
It was replaced with a mechanical beauty created by the master smiths of House Zahhak. Linking metal bands for flexibility and fingers with joints that could be articulated and locked into convenient positions by the free hand were particularly brilliant design additions. As she’d been only thirteen when she’d suffered the injury, Vriska had since learned to use the hand with more ease than could have been hoped for. She wielded a saber and daggers with the best, and could feed and dress herself with no outside aid. (Which was more than some pampered noble ladies could say.)

The dark silver of the steel hand was barely noticeable in the low light. It was not polished - no need to attract too much attention. But the young woman knew it was there all the same, and made a point to drag her eyes along it.  
This only served to frustrated Vriska, who curled her lip and bared her teeth. She closed the narrow gap to get right up in the face of the smaller woman. They looked terribly at odds, the tall skinny blonde noble and the short curving raven haired commoner. “What is wrong with you?” Vriska demanded.  
The impassive young woman only shrugged.  
“Get the Hell out of my way,” snarled Vriska, reaching out her metal hand to shove the younger woman out of her way.

A hand, shockingly strong, clamped down on Vriska’s metal wrist. She could not feel it, but she did see the move. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, girl?” she asked, hair-trigger temper rising. She shoved the woman back, hard, slamming her against the stone of the wall and pushing past to make for the closed door.  
But the lowborn one was quicker than that, reaching out and yanking Lady Serket back, setting the woman stumbling as the commoner slipped around her and blocked the door herself.

Vriska looked livid. “I don’t know what business your master has with my mother,” she pressed on through clenched teeth, “But whatever it is, it ought to be discussed in the open. I am the rightful heir to House Serket and the future Lady of The Web.” He voice dropped suddenly to a low, dangerous growl, “Let. Me. In.”

Finally the woman spoke back. A simple statement: “No.”  
Blue eyes flashed. “I am the heir and you’ll obey me, gutter-born, or you’ll hurt for it.”  
Brown eyes looked bored. “My master says to guard the door and admit no one. No one will be admitted.” She spoke with something of an accent, a thickening from a country tongue and a strange lilt, as if she were taught to speak in some very far off place.

But Vriska was having none of her excuses, and once again tried to shove past. “If you don’t get out of my way I will draw my sword. And then there’ll be nothing left of you to guard any door,” she threatened.  
The woman didn’t seem troubled. She shook her head again, the trailing bangs of her high-bun hairstyle sliding gently over her shoulders. “I wouldn’t, were I you,” she warned, though she didn’t sound like she cared much one way or the other.  
“And why not?” demanded Vriska.

With a simple shrug, the woman made a sweeping, turning gesture with her hand, ending with her open palm up. A smell like spent firecrackers crept into the hall. A ball sprang to life in the woman’s hand, the sphere itself green, but surrounded by red flame-like tendrils. Every so often green lighting sparks would flash from the orb.  
“Time and pain,” she explained. Apparently the colors meant something to her, as she watched them swirl for a moment then looked up to Vriska, who was at once transfixed and repelled. The noblewoman’s good hand clenched tight on the hilt of the saber in her belt.  
Another twist of the hand and the ball vanished, and the woman’s hands dropped back to her sides. “It would not be pleasant.”

For a second, Vriska seemed put-off. She hesitated... and then set herself into a glare. “You’re bluffing,” she accused, once more trying to shove past, setting a hand on the woman’s shoulder and giving her a hard _shove_... that did not work. The woman was surprisingly dense, and did not budge.  
But a few flicks of the wrist too quick for mortal eyes to catch, the firecracker scent and sudden sparks of green and red shocked to life in the air, and Vriska leapt back with a yelp. She glared, alarmed.

“That was the sting of a bee,” the woman commented mildly, hands already relaxed again. She’d barely had to move to perform the move. “Next time it will be the bite of a dog.”  
“Will it?” sneered Vriska, “And after the pup?”  
“There will be no time after that.” The woman’s red-brown eyes flicked over Vriska, who was hastening to right herself. “You will wait. Entering is out of the question.”

The two women were quiet then, eyeing one another, seizing up their competition. Eventually, Vriska turned to leave, electing to cut her losses.

“My lady spider,” said the woman suddenly, just when Vriska’s back was turned.  
She looked back over her shoulder, hesitating, “What?”  
“....You hate me?” the woman’s voice did not sound hurt, per se, but it did sound small.  
It was enough to give Vriska some level of pause. “Yes,” she responded, the word sounding nearly like a question. Her curiosity was piqued.  
“Why?” the woman questioned, tipping her head again, ever so slightly.

It didn’t take Vriska long to compose her response. “Because you’re too good to give anyone your proper name. Because you are some little low born trash; that’s clear all over your face. You’re a servant to a mage, yet you act like it gives you power.” Vriska nearly spat it. she felt entitled over this girl. She was angry, frustrated that she could not hurt her with as much ease as she wished. “And there is something in you. Stupid way you strut, I think...” her eyes narrowed, “It puts a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t like you one bit.”

If she wanted to offend, she failed miserably. For the woman only smirked, flashing neat, even white teeth. “Good,” she declared, “You _should_ hate me.” And then she waved, as if Vriska Serket was a child at whom to wave ‘bye bye’ or a servant to be dismissed.  
Too outraged and too shocked to do much else, Vriska gaped for a moment before sweeping off down the hall, head held high. The peasant bitch could have her comeuppance soon enough. She’d make sure of that.

~~~~

Two hours later, Scratch exited the room, Marquise Spinneret two steps behind. His servant girl was still standing at her post, guarding the door from _all_ intruders, indiscriminate of whom those intruders may be.  
Scratch had a soft, genial smile on his face, while the Marquise was grinning. Their meeting seemed to have gone well. That was good news, indeed.

“I do hope that you feel as confident in this arrangement as I do, my Lady,” Scratch was saying even as the heavy door swung wide.  
The woman nodded. “Oh, Scratch, I believe that this is destined to be a most fortunate situation for all involved. Mutual benefit is always a boon.” Taller even than her daughter, with her long blonde locks only marginally more tamed, Lady Spinneret cut an imposing figure. She eschewed the fine courtly dresses of most noble women, preferring tightly-fitted breeches and sharp-cut boots. Her thick, sweeping coat was well tailored to her form, in impressive tone for almost fifty years and two children.

“A shame that my handmaid and I ran into such trouble on the road...” Scratch made a calculated comment as the two paused in the hall, “But our ill-luck led to some very good luck, don’t you think?” He was playing her like a fiddle; it was almost too funny to watch, and the young woman had to bite down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep her snark and her giggles behind her teeth.  
“You’ll not likely encounter any storms here,” the Marquise assured the short pale man, “Unless your magics really are that powerful. But that remains to be seen!” She extended her gloved hand and Scratch took it, dryly grazing her knuckles with his lips.  
“And seen it shal be,” he agreed as the woman smiled, inclined her head slightly, and took her leave. Scratch and his servant stood still, listening until the sharp click of her heels rounded the corner and faded from earshot.

When she was gone, some unspoken instruction passed between the two, and they turned as one and retreated back to the room. This time the young woman entered as well.  
The apartments were exceedingly simple - guest furnishings for the pair while they stayed in The Web. They were waylaid by an exceedingly well-placed group of bandits (actually a few disposable members of The Felt - Lord English's army, controlled by Scratch)... and a group of Serket knights had come across them at just the right moment. They had been rescued (the Felt soldiers had been disposable for good reason) and escorted back to The Web, where Scratch quickly won over the Marquise, eventually suggesting that they should speak in private.

Scratch sat lightly on the small sofa while the young woman remained by the door. The apartment featured a small sitting room attached to two small bedrooms, one plainer than the other. Not bad last-moment accommodations for master and servant... though the young woman expected that the arrangements would upgrade now that this meet had gone so well.  
“I will be tutoring Lady Vriska Serket in the magic arts,” Scratch stated what his handmaid already knew. She didn’t react. “I’m told she displays an aptitude, and I trust that I can have her sufficiently ready to assist the cause in a couple of months.”  
His colorless lips cracked a withdrawn smile. “You’re taking this well, my dear. I’m glad you’ve come to fully accept your place.”

“...I always did, my lord,” the woman replied after a moment of consideration.  
Scratch nodded. “The better you handle these first few preparations, the better you will handle the ultimate. I’m pleased with you, Damara.”  
“Thank you,” Damara nodded, red-brown eyes not crinkling at the edges when she smiled coldly, “Father.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did the thing on time! Praise me! :D

With Terezi gone, Equius had little with which to occupy himself. He was a very high ranking man... but there was a procedure to which he _must_ adhere. Without an invitation (express and verbal or as simple and subtle as eye contact) he could only approach those ranking lower than himself while at court. That eliminated any Makaras, Amporas, or Piexes... not that he really had any desire to approach any of them in the first place.  
Terezi got a pass on this unwritten law due to her blindness; it was one of the areas where she played it up. (Oh the poor blind girl, she’ll never be able to tell if she’s invited to speak or not! As if she couldn’t tell exactly what was going on if she wanted to.)

Certainly, Equius could approach anyone else in this hall _not_ of one of those major families... He clearly ranked above them, after all, and they were not without their merit. He could speak to bannermen, to the various mid-born guests here for the wedding, to the holy men and women of the Jade Orders... But why in the world would he want to? They could offer nothing to him, nothing but more mindless chatter and too many pleasantries to drag and slow the discussion until it became entirely bereft of a point.

It seemed the better part of valor to nip the entire affair before it worsened. Equius did a final scan of the room, seeking anything else that might be of use to him.  
‘ _Fewer Amporas than seems strictly appropriate, but that’s only to be expected... Ocean people... No Serkets_ ,’ he made notes to himself of the obvious, tones of disdain for the Ampora family clearly present in his mind, ‘ _But no Makaras, either. That’s odd. Terezi didn’t mention them being absent..._  
The Makaras had no business not being there. Perhaps they were all in their own wing. Knowing that they had to be _near_ but being unsure of exactly _where_ made Equius terribly jumpy. He didn’t like it. The Makaras were ones to watch at all times. Nobody ever had any way of knowing quite what they would do next. Not having both eyes on them made Equius powerfully uncomfortable.

But there was nothing for it. Going luckily unnoticed in the good-sized milling crowd, Equius slipped back and out the large and open doors. Better to hide out in the safety of his rooms until the indignity of dinner needed to be suffered. He’d be preserved for another few hours, so at least there was that.

~~~

By dinner, the Serkets had still not shown themselves. The Makaras, on the other hand, had. They arrived fashionably late for dinner (Equius imagined that they had overslept... it seemed like something such careless types would do) and burst into the room with an appalling level of fanfare.

The Grand Hall was arranged in the traditional style, but amplified: enormous double doors opened wide to a truly gigantic room with rows of tables and benches stretching four deep and six wide, each table sitting a good fifteen men. Wrought iron chandeliers hung pendulous from pulleys on the great vaulted ceiling, flooding the room with the light of whale oil and long wicks. Tall windows stretched from mid-wall to almost the ceiling itself, paned in colored glass at great expense. And at the head of it all was the grand table, set up on an almost stage like level, a place for the important people to sit and look down on the rabble making merry below.  
Equius, for one, had always preferred to sit at the grand table, as was appropriate for his place and power. But a few times, a long time ago, his best friend had made him sit with her with the commonfolk at feasts.

They were both high ranking enough that they had no obligation to do so. They could be seated up at the table where, Equius argued, they belonged. But Nepeta was always such a gentle soul with quite the friendly streak... she wanted to sit with the people she knew. It was so silly to separate only at feasts, she argued, when they lived and played and worked alongside everyone they pretended to be so superior to as soon as a special occasion sprang up.  
When she’d first started insisting on this, Equius had been nervous about it. They didn’t _belong_ down there... they would get in trouble! (And, sure enough the one time Equius was foolish enough to sit with the lowborn when they had higher-ranking guests, his father beat him black and blue for it. But that had only happened once.) But Nepeta was so tiny and so open to everyone.... it could be dangerous. She needed protection, and he was big enough even as a teeanger that he could provide it.  
But slowly, eventually, it became less to defend her, more just to enjoy her company. Though it would take hours of Nepeta needling and dragging it out of him, Equius would eventually have to admit that it _was_ more fun down there. Even if it was terribly ill-behaved and scandalous, somehow that seemed to make it all the more exciting.

They were ten and thirteen when they’d started doing that. And they only continued a handful of times again in their lives. It was on a night such as that, when they were seventeen and twenty, when they had gotten so terribly, painfully drunk that they...  
Equius still, to this day, could not think on it without feeling ill. A foolish mistake with severe consequences. Retribution from the gods, perhaps, for his childish lack of discretion. He had never sat with the smallfolk again. And nothing would ever persuade him to do so.

Perhaps something in him had associated his slumming with Nepeta’s death. His interaction on that first night with Aradia had been the first time he’d dined with a commoner with no redeeming value to her since that night. And it was definitely the first time he’d spoken so openly with one without Nepeta to urge him on. But Aradia was different. Aradia would always be different.

In spite of that line of thinking and true to his custom, Equius sat up at the main table with the other visiting lords and ladies. It was a shamefully gap-toothed table, a seat left free on either side of Equius as they awaited their rightful Makara and Serket occupants.  
And once the Makaras finally _did_ arrive, Equius might have argued that the table was worse for their addition. House Makara was known for being remarkably miss-matched and disorderly both in company and in appearance. 

The Makaras burst in through the great doors making quite the ruckus. They were laughing wildly, some of them singing bawdy drinking songs at the very tops of their lungs, a few literally hanging off of one another, unable to trust their own legs for support. They must have tapped into the royal reserves of spirits already.  
And at the head of it all was Gamzee Makara, grinning like a fool, untamed mop of hair sticking and curling up in every possible direction as if nobody had ever explained to him the function of a _comb_ , long lanky limbs swinging wildly as he loped through the hall and up the dias steps to his seat.  
The already rowdy dinner only increased in volume with addition of a score of new guests as the Makara company integrated themselves. The commonfolk seated below seemed torn between being terrified and thrilled by the exciting newcomers.  
Gamzee sank into his place, leaning back in his chair and draping his arms out over the arms of the chair. The motley purple and black check on his jerkin only added an illusion of making his limbs look even longer than they already were. He looked rather a giant.

“I’d expect such a troupe of fools to have horns and drums,” Lady Terezi commented mildly, inclining her head in Gamzee’s direction. Something wicked and mischievous glinted behind the milky film of her eyes. “Come, most noble of fools: let’s have a joke.”  
Nobody else would be as foolish (actually, _suicidal_ seemed a closer term) to bait a Makara as a Pyrope. And none but Gamzee and Terezi would ever push it as far as they did. They had been butting heads like this ever since they’d met in their youth. At first people had tried to warn the young Pyrope cripple away from her behaviours, but she was never dissuaded.  
Most people regarded Terezi as a special kind of mad by this point anyway, and also they all seemed rather in awe of the fact that Gamzee never did do anything drastic about her behaviour. Naturally he would threaten and growl and shriek, rile up his men so that they were itching for bloodlust, insane gleams in their sharp eyes... but it inevitably fell short. Gamzee had never laid a hand on Terezi, at least not so far as Equius had ever heard. If he had, Terezi wasn’t making it public news.

Lucky for her, Gamzee had already had enough to drink this evening that he didn’t seem as on the verge of murder as usual. Still, his head snapped up and turned to glare at her with a breakneck speed. One corner of his upper lip curled, flashing canines that were probably filed into points purely for intimidation purposes. His yellow-brown eyes flashed, and he growled out something.  
“What was that, Lord fool?” Terezi asked, cupping a hand behind her ear and leaning in. “I didn’t quite catch.”

“I said...” began Gamzee. He suddenly sat bolt upright and leaned across the gap between their seats, grabbing the edge of the long table. He looked as if he wanted to seize her wrist (or her neck) for a moment, but he was sober enough to know this would be too offensive too soon. He knew this little game. “...I’m not very funny.”  
Contrary to the statement, Terezi laughed, dry and sharp. After a tense moment, she eased back into her seat. “You always do know how to liven up dinner, Lord Gamzee,” she complimented casually. As if he hadn’t just plotted out her murder in his head, and as if she didn’t know it.

Gamzee relaxed a moment later, settling back down in his chair and nodding. “You might say so,” suddenly his voice turned harsh when he turned around and barked, “WINE. NOW,” at the unsuspecting cupbearer, who jumped and sloshed some dry white dinner wine down his front.   
Equius almost felt sorry for the poor lad - the Makaras were notably intimidating. And a mostly-sober Gamzee all the more so.

Drinking was something akin to a religious experience for the Makara family. While the rest of the Empire worshipped the Twelve-Tiered Gods (childlike figures that blessed their followers according to type), House Makara combined their worship with intense, secretive rituals to their own Mirthful Messiahs. Nobody beyond their desert lands knew much about it... nor did anyone want to. At least anyone in their right mind.  
All Equius knew was that it involved blood, laughter, and imbibing powerful liquids. Thus visiting House Makara members were often drunk, sometimes on their own thick, slimy brews.

But some took it beyond the point of religion. Several years ago, the Lord Highborn (why the family had seen fit to name him that, Equius would _never_ understand) had attempted to cut off his nephew, Gamzee Makara. It had not worked, and now the man was mostly drunk most of the time.  
Nobody wished him back on the horse, either. Lord Makara was a sloppy, slow, useless drunk, but at least he was well-meaning, easy going, and of gentle disposition. Sober, the man was more a terror than most in his House... and that said something.

Equius waited a few courses, until Gamzee had had enough cups of rich wine in his belly to pacify his temper. He knew it was safe when Gamzee ceased his banter with Lady Terezi and she’d abandoned him as boring, in favor of the cherry-stuffed squab on her plate.  
“My Lord Makara...” he said carefully, leaning over to converse with the man (who was ignoring proper seating order, taking up Lady Serket’s vacant seat instead of his own). “It has been a terribly long time. How is your Lord Uncle?”  
Though they’d seen one another several times since the Final Battle of the Signless, it had been many months since their last encounter... not that this particularly grieved Lord Zahhak.

The lanky young lord propped his head up on one hand, elbow braced on the table. “Aw, he’s fuckin’ fine,” he slurred. “He’s wicked busy though, you know, my brother? Peasants been gettin’ all these wicked ideas from that fucking Signless.” His tone dropped to a growl, and Equius wondered if he’d been too quick to assume total sobriety.  
“A shame,” he agreed with a slow shake of his head, “I’ve had similar troubles. Too many lowly born whelps thinking above their caste. It’s a sad state, but this happens every few generations, I’m told. We need only remind them of who _they_ are and who _we_ are and all will be well again.” The irony of his words did not sink in for Equius; he’d done too much blocking over the years for that.

To this, Gamzee at least nodded. “Good chance to flex. Play with the clubs and blades a bit, eh, brother?” He chuckled and took a long drag of his wine. He held his liquor well, thanks to all the practice he’d had. It never failed to impress (and disturb) Equius.  
When Gamzee lowered the cup he looked slowly around the room, up and down the head table as if just noticing it. “Where’s your wife, my brother?”

For a moment, Equius’s mind flashed to Aradia and then delved into total confusion. He hadn’t found her yet to wed her, but how would gamzee have even known of his plan-? Oh. Vriska. Right. He forced his face back to a mask. “...Lady Serket and I have yet to wed,” he replied, not keeping all of the distaste from his voice.  
“Well why the fuck not?” Gamzee demanded, chuckling. “She’s a scary spiderbitch, but she’s a fine one.” He drank a heavy gulp. “Seal the fucking deal, brother!”

Equius could have cringed. “Soon enough, Lord Makara,” he waved off the insistence, “No need to rush matters.”  
Lord Makara tilted his head to one side, neck swiveling alarmingly far, dripping his greasy curls off to one side. “Well where is she though?”  
Equius hesitated. “...I’m told she’s on her way, along with her party. I had heard that she was delayed by some unforeseen calamity.”  
Gamzee nodded his head in sympathy. “Gotta’ be watchin’ out for that wicked calamity. No good stuff, my brother.”  
“No,” agreed Equius dryly, suddenly needing a fuller cup of wine, “No good at all.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fandom secret: This is Grendel's absolute favorite chapter. So fave that she wrote a tie-in for it as a gift for someone.

_Six months ago._

The air smelled of jasmine and eucalyptus, clove and dragon’s blood. Everything was scent here, rich and only a moment shy of being overpowering. The altar was thick with smoke, blue drifts of it curling lazily through the space from half a dozen sources - smouldering cones, sizzling dishes of powder, gently burning stalks in elegant golden tubes.  
And the scented smoke absorbed into everything. The thick rugs released scent where footsteps fell, the heavy velvet curtains and hangings wafted it when moved, and the silken pillows came up in small poofs of it when fluffed. Even Scratch’s thin hair was picking up some of it, and Damara was quite sure that her thick, coarse hair would be nearly unbearable after this little excursion. And that was to say nothing of their robes - much too heavy material for the oppressive heat outside, and only just tolerable in the cool sandstone rooms of the Sanctuary of Light.

Derse was a hot nation, after all, located in the steaming jungles and vast deserts to the south of The Empire.  
And after two days within its borders, Damara was already quite sure that she hated it. It was too hot, too stuffy, too bizarre... though the fashions (which bared a shocking amount of skin on men and women alike, at least by Empire standards) she thought she might be able to get used to.

For example, the woman who had appeared to direct them to their appointment. Her silk caftan clung alarmingly close to her body in place, hugging her breasts, waist, hips, and thighs so tantalizingly, as if to suggest a shape but never allow sight of it. Her arms were bared in the heat, but the hemline fell to her ankles. A few plain golden ornamentations - a belt, a necklace, an arm cuff, an ankle bracelet for her naked foot - were all she had, and all she needed. The glint was ideal against the darkness of the dress and her richly earth-toned skin.  
And the clothes suited the woman:  
She was tall for a female, making the short foreigners seem all the tinier in comparison. She was willowy, too, with long, graceful limbs and delicate hands. Her face was beautiful, high cheekbones and deep jade-green eyes, a long slightly curving nose grounding her face and keeping it from being too spritely. Her black hair was swept up, too short to obscure her elegant neck.

She smelled faintly of sandalwood, which seemed to suit her: understated, but saying so much with those few notes.  
“Come with me,” was all she said, in a clear, crisp voice that enunciated each word precisely. Without waiting for a response, she led the guests down a series of high-ceilinged, simply adorned halls.

The Sanctuary of Light was beautiful and mysterious in equal parts. It was difficult to know just what went on in each of the many rooms of the twisting structure, or even how far it would be from one place to the next; from what Damara had seen, it seemed to disregard the laws of space. It would have been unsettling were she not so used to magics in all capacities.  
Most of the Sanctuary was bedecked in shades of yellow and orange, with light blue accents just to shatter the monotony. Even the people here (aside from their guide, who for some reason wore black) wore those colors in varying cuts of dress. All in lightweight fabrics, sensible for the heat.  
The symbol of a stylized yellow sun was inescapable: the frescoes on the ceilings, and the carvings on the walls, etched into doors, wrought into gold, tiled into floor mosaics. Even the windows were shaped as such in varying sizes. It was also borne on the chest of the few attendants they’d seen scurrying about their business. (It was absent from the chest of their guide, but her armband featured a subtle etched sun, instead.)

These things flew in the face of the rest of the Dersite fashions, which favored rich purples and pinks. It might have been monotonous within the confines of the Sanctuary, but in comparison it was a relief to the eyes.  
Not to the nose, however, and Damara was beginning to suffer a headache when they finally stopped outside of a deceptively plain door.

“Wait here,” requested their guide politely, bowing briefly and then ducking into the room. Quiet voices exchanged words, and a moment later she returned, holding the door open for Scratch and Damara.  
“My lady welcomes you,” she said simply, ushering them inside the sanctuary.  
the room itself was surprisingly cool, hung thickly with curtains to fully cover the walls and block the windows. Unlike the nearly hallucinogenic smokes in the rest of the Sanctuary, there was no incense here, a blessed relief, and Damara inhaled a greedy breath of the fresher air.  
It was largely decked in orange tones here, in line with the rest of the Sanctuary, but there was a more than fair representation of purple tones. Perhaps their host was patriotic?

Once her eyes adjusted to the colors and the cool darkness, Damara saw that the room was not terribly dissimilar to Scratch’s study. The floor was plain sandstone, inlaid with beaten gold suns and silver moons (she imagined to illustrate the duality of Derse and the Sanctuary’s motifs). The walls were completely covered, and only one window (glassless, as all were here) had the curtains pulled aside enough to admit a knife of light that cut across the room. The rest was lit with an eerie, diffused glow. Damara was unsure of its source.  
What may have been a bed or simply a particularly cozy nook filled a window seat with cushions and thin silk blankets. A large but delicately carved wooden desk took up most of the space, with a simple stool behind it. Everything else was books, piled high in stacks all around the room.

With such clutter, it was no surprise that their host was elusive. She saw them before even Scratch saw her.  
“You’ve come far,” remarked a soft voice. Their eyes shot over to a place on the floor, and the girl who sat on a cushion there. She was nearly surrounded by a crescent of books stacked as high as her seated shoulders. Her close-clinging robes were in the light orange and yellow as everyone else here - a sweeping caftan over ballooning trousers; its hood was pulled up, hiding her face from their view. “Was your journey difficult?”

Though Damara was sure Scratch had been surprised by the sudden appearance, he hid it without seam. “You’d know the answer to that if you chose to seek it, Seer,” he addressed her as if the title was as high a compliment as any noble lady.  
“Yes,” she agreed. Her voice was muted, as if she could speak loudly if she wished, but so far nothing in her life had spurred her to that point. “But isn’t it much more polite to have a conversation about it?”  
“You are correct, as ever, Seer,” Scratch bowed to defeat. “Our journey was no more troublesome than any other. The road presented us with no difficulties.”  
“You’re an excellent rider, then,” said the girl.  
“Among other things,” agreed Scratch.

On that note, their hostess stood at last. She was diminutive, all-over slight, though she stood somewhere between Damara’s 5’0 and Scratch’s 5’4. The hands that lifted her thick tome had slender fingers, clearly not hands that had ever been put to hard labour. She brought the book over to her desk, setting it down gently. It was nearly soundless on the velvet top of the surface. Hand thus freed, she lifted her cowl from her head and turned to face her visitors.  
Her eyes stood out from her extremely dark complexioned face, strikingly bright and in an unusual shade of violet. Her small mouth was painted in black. It made her teeth sparkle all the whiter. The eyes, the hands, the mouth... such features would not have been found on anyone of the Empire, and even here were arresting. Most strange of all, her hair was cropped short around her neck, curling over her dainty oval jaw and framing her face in pure white locks. It was not _colorless_ or blanched with age, as Scratch’s hair seemed to be, but pure white. She was beautiful.

“I would be lying if I said I was not expecting you,” she went on, turning to face them fully, pressing back into her desk and leaning, hands braced on the edge. “Unfortunately, you come seeking the wrong person.”  
Scratch didn’t seem perturbed. “Do I? And how is that?”  
“I lack what you seek,” responded the young woman with a tilt on one perfectly groomed white eyebrow. “And furthermore I never had it to begin with. You are very far from your goal.”

A fleeting look of irritation crossed Scratch’s face, but it faded. “Might you look for it, then, Seer?”  
“I have,” she replied promptly, shaking her head lightly. “I see nothing. And I have no advice for you.”  
“Decline to assist me if you wish, though it is at your peril, Seer,” Scratch said, his tone curt, “But do not lie to me. It does not become you.”  
The Seer of the Sanctuary of Light frowned. “You won’t like any of the answers I have to give you...” she warned him haltingly.  
Scratch was having none of that, waving away her protests with practiced diplomacy. “To like them or not is my business. I will decide where I stand after you provide me with the answers I seek.”

The girl (and she really was only a girl - Damara would have been reluctant to name her age over sixteen) seemed to deliberate with herself for a moment. She closed her eyes, inhaled a deep breath, and a look of calm passed visibly over her before she returned to neutral. “Very well then, Scratch.  
Thus steeled, the Seer crossed the room to a standing reading table. Opening a drawer with a twist of a key Damara saw her neither produce nor conceal again, the girl withdrew a velvet drawstring pouch. Setting it carefully on the book stand, she pulled it open. Her dainty hands were very nearly reverent. From the pouch, she withdrew two long, striped things that seemed almost like... knitting needles. A thought which Damara furiously suppressed the moment it rose its common little head. The needles... _wands_ were ornate and probably vastly stronger than they actually looked.  
But they were set aside in favor of a different item: a polished silver looking glass, framed in swirling silver that looked not so much wrought as melted over the outside edge, dripping down to form a handle. It was this that the Seer chose, holding it with care between her two hands.

“I’ll have to ask you to avert your eyes,” she less asked, more instructed. Scratch lead the way by casting his eyes to the ground, and after a challenging moment (she was simply unable to resist), Damara’s eyes joined him there.  
The surface of the mirror shimmer in many different colors, colors it could not have possibly picked up from the room, and tossed them about as if it was producing its own colored light. Damara watched the colored lights play and ripple as there was a sound both metallic and wet - like a swordfight in the rain - and then a low, throaty hum.  
After a few lingering minutes the sounds and lights faded away again. “You may look again,” the Seer said calmly. She was slipping the tools back into the pouch when Damara did as suggested.

“There is a void,” the Seer said, locking eyes with Scratch. “A thick one. Deep. It does not originate from whatever has your orb-” Scratch tensed a sliver, “-but it is near enough and powerful enough to conceal it. I can find no reason for it; it may very well be accidental.” She raised her arms out in an empty-handed gesture. “Were my sister here, I might be able to offer you a guide through that blankness. But she is in our capital, and quite inaccessible to you at this time. There is nothing I can do.” She didn’t apologize. She clearly didn’t mean to.

All of this must have made sense to Scratch in a way that escaped his servant, because he nodded seriously, stroking his chin with one paper-skinned hand. “I see,” she commented thoughtfully. “And have you gleaned any insights into an advisable course of action?”  
“For you?” the Seer closed and locked her pouch away again before standing. “No. But for _her_ ,” she pointed to a now mildly interested Damara, “Yes.”

The Dersite girl took a few steps forward and looked directly at Damara for the first time. “You must be careful. I am not on anyone’s side in this matter... but your personal opposition is stronger than you’d like to think. The light shed on your own path is a very slim road. And there is darkness at the end from every angle I see. Don’t mistake defeat for a mere slip - I’d try and take it with grace, were I you.”  
Her tone was completely impassive, but Damara was incensed. Her teeth grit and her lip curled. “And what would you know of it, stupid girl?” she snarled. “Spoiled southern princess. You think light will protect you from everything? Even light fades over time.”

“Damara!” snapped Scratch furiously. “Hold your tongue!”

The Seer didn’t look frightened, per se, but her violet eyes did widen a bit and she withdrew. “...I intended only to offer the guidance you sought. There’s no function in resenting me. The book is written, I only read ahead.”  
“The guidance _he_ sought,” spat Damara, “I ask for nothing from you, _cunt_.”

“That’s quite enough!” Scratch silenced his servant. He made a gesture and green sparks laced around Damara’s neck, effectively forcing her silence. The sparks crackled on her lips and she frowned deeply.  
“I’ll not have you speak so to our hostess,” growled the man, “We are her _guests_. You know how I hold that.”

Turning back to the Seer, the man bowed respectfully. “I apologize for my handmaid’s outbursts. She is recuperating still.”  
“She resents her fate,” commented the Seer mildly. She had returned to her calm countenance. “I can’t say I blame her.”

As the two foreigners made their way out of the chamber of the Seer, door held by the tall, elegant attendant, the young girl called out a final suggestion: “I’d seek spiders, were I you.”


	9. Chapter 9

Waking well before dawn proved no good luck charm for warding off the Serkets. In fact, Equius’s habit of keeping military hours only led to him finding out of their arrival all the sooner. He dressed himself well for court (he gave in to fashion and allowed a flat black tunic today, with only his sapphire and silver signet ring and cape broach to display the colors of his house) and steeled himself to grin and bear it.

As dreaded, the Serkets had arrived in the night and were there to break their fast in full style, along with the rest of the court, who had managed to rouse themselves before noon (Lord Zahhak, needless to say, disapproved of such decadence) to come out and see them.

The head table was graced by a full house, for once, even needing additional seats called in to accommodate everyone of the breeding worthy to sit there.  
The Empress herself was in the center, flanked on her immediate right by her daughter. To the right of the Princess sat her betrothed, and to his right was Gamzee Makara. Beside Gamzee, at the end of the table, was Terezi Pyrope, wearing the strangest expression on her face. She seemed torn between glee and a grimace.  
On the Empress's other side were the trio of Serket women: Marquise Spinneret was on her immediate left, with her youngest daughter Aranea on her's.  
Aranea was an odd girl, from what Equius had heard. He couldn't say he knew her. She was a ward of House Piexes, and apparently holed herself up in her rooms or in the palace library, taking most of her meals alone.

Mother and daughter must have been quite well pleased to see one another, with such near seating. Especially as it ignored birth order.  
Because of course there was Aranea's elder sister to her left: Vriska Serket herself. And she'd saved Equius a seat.

He felt his heart sink. How _wonderful_ for him. Walking up to that table felt like walking to the executioner's block. But he did it anyway, plastering on a smile as fake as any he’d ever worn.  
“My Empress,” he said respectively above all else, bowing at the waist. She nodded indulgently, apparently in a good mood from her company.  
He turned his attention to the spider women. “My Lady Serket,” he greeted the Marquis first. She smiled and offered a hand, which he kissed lightly.  
Purely to irritate his betrothed, Equius kissed the hand of her younger sister first. The girl flushed and mumbled something that he didn’t quite catch and didn’t quite care to.

“Equius,” Vriska beat him to any greeting, “So good to see my future husband. Sit, why don’t you? Have some breakfast. The cold roast pork is just lovely.”  
He could have strangled her right then and there. But instead he played the gentleman and suffered through breaking his fast in her company. For the most of it, Vriska simply prattled away, and Equius was glad to let her, tuning her out until she was a dull mosquito whine. It was not until she mentioned something he was not expecting that he actually took the trouble to pay attention.

“...so I’ve been studying under him and I’ve been making soooooooo much progress, Equius, you would not even believe-”  
“What was that?” he cut her off.  
Vriska looked a little ruffled at the sudden interruption; she’d probably have been better suited to just continuing on her rant even without anyone listening. “Ugh, my _tutor_ I said. The man who’s been instructing me in magics. You know, making your future bride a properly accomplished lady?”  
Equius stifled his retorts. “Yes, but the name. what was the man’s _name?_ ”

The woman shrugged. “Scratch. I don’t know why you _care_ though, Equius. It isn’t as if it’s at all important...”  
‘ _More important than you will ever understand_ ,’ rang Equius’s thoughts. “And you brought him?” he said aloud, putting in effort to keep his voice level.  
“ _Yes_ ,” groaned an exasperated Vriska. “He’s in his quarters resting. You’ll meet him at court today if you care so much.”

Court. He could handle it until court. He could repress the urge to find and murder the man until court. Lord Zahhak took a long drink of his mug of cider and willed himself to wait it out.

~~~

 

~~~

It seemed that Vriska was _actively tying_ to keep her guest and her fiance separate. Equius had always found the woman beyond infuriating, but this was simply in the extreme. She had no knowledge of who Scratch was to Equius or why he meant anything... but she did know that Equius wanted very much to see him and that was enough to make her want to keep them apart. It was motivated by pure spite. Not for the first time, Equius wondered to himself – if he murdered his fiancee, how much would she _really_ be missed?

Court today was not merely court. With the Princess's wedding so close at hand, the parties were growing grander. She'd be wed at the close of the week, and so now was the time for the grandest of the balls, turning every day into a display of the graces... as well as a veritable fashion show.  
People were talking, eating, dancing, flexing their ranking and birth and power... and Equius, as much as he appreciated his pedigree, didn't much care for it. Yes, it was impressive. Yes, it was grand. But years spent as an unwilling wallflower (he'd not been a fair youth) had tainted his experience of such events.  
And knowing that Scratch – and by extension, Aradia – could be anywhere distracted him from any possibility of enjoyment.

But Vriska simply would not leave him alone. Every time he attempted to give her the slip, there she was, insistent upon a drink, a dance, a stroll.  
“Honestly, Equius,” she said, tone fakingly accusative and realistically mocking, “It's as if you don't want to dance with me.” The woman was tall, though not as tall as he, and she was able to make eye contact with only a slight tip of her neck. Her vivid cerulean eyes narrowed tauntingly at him. “Doesn't all of this seem so romantic to you? A young couple in love on the doorstep of their wedding. I'm surprised you're not feeling more... amorous.”

Funny, but the blissful couple didn't seem all that blissful to Equius. If anything, the Princess seemed to be growing irritated with her betrothed. The young Ampora remained near, literally tripping over the train of her dress at times in his zeal to be close to her. But Princess Feferi seemed distant at best. The dance they were leading seemed stilted.

Equius turned his head from the sight and looked down at Vriska. Her wild blonde locks were clipped back into a sapphire-studded comb, set with a large feather, dyed blue to match her tightly cut dress. She looked ridiculous.  
“I’m not much of the dancing sort,” Equius excused.  
“Oh but I _insist_ ” Vriska... insisted.

This was an awkward position, and Equius was quite trapped. He truly could _not_ say no to her. If he did, he had no doubt that Vriska would cause a scene. a scene would involve other people. And other people would come with questions.  
 _”Why won’t you just dance with her?”  
”She’s your betrothed! You’re supposed to be dancing.”  
”Why haven’t you wed her yet, anyway?”_  
Questions Equius had no desire to answer.

He gritted his teeth. She was of a lower birth than he. an entire house rank lower. how _dare_ she order him about? “If you insist, my lady, I imagine I have little other choice.”  
Vriska’s red-painted lips split into a wide grin. “I’m so glad to hear you say so.” In moments her arms were around him, and her metalwork prosthetic hand was clutching his, false fingers trained into a vise.  
The music picked up a tempo and Vriska - leading from the female position - spun Equius out onto the floor. He was not pleased with it, but he’d be damned if he was going to allow her to lead, so very forcibly wrest control. Vriska seemed pleased to have forced him to lead, and went along with it.

“What’s been the matter with you of late?” the Serket noblewoman inquired as her close-cut shirt pressed to the front of his breeches. “You seem even more distant and grumpy than usual, _my dear_.” She tacked-on the address with a sneer.  
“Nothing of your concern,” replied Equius gruffly. A dance with this harpy was bad enough... a conversation so much the worse.  
“Is that so?” Vriska replied, quirking a brow. “See, because _I_ was under the impression that couples ought to share all of their information... Unless of course we aren’t a couple?” She added a pout to that. At this point Equius was quite sure she was doing it purely to irritate him. And it was working.

“A husband,” he growled low, “is not bound by law to reveal everything to his wi-”  
“Ah but there’s the crux of it, isn’t it?” Vriska interrupted him, “Husbands and wives? Which we aren’t. And why not, I wonder? We’ve been promised since we were but children.”  
“You’re the one who put it off,” Lord Zahhak pointed out.  
“Yes, yes, back when you were young and spotty,” Lady Serket rolled her eyes. Tact and delicacy were not her strong suits.  
Equius felt his temper flaring. They did not stop dancing, but they slowed, and his grip squeezed her suddenly, painfully tight. “You forget your manners, Lady Serket. It does not behoove-”

The large man felt a sudden tap at his shoulder. They froze and Equius looked out... and then down at a man far shorter than he. An older man, with hair that seemed nigh colorless. A man with papery skin and pale, bright eyes. A pale man. He was dressed in robes of white and green, and he was smiling calmly up at the lord.  
“Hello, Lord Zahhak. And Lady Serket,” he said in a calm, measured voice. “Would you mind terribly if I cut in?”

Equius had no idea who he was.  
But Vriska did.

“Ah, Scratch,” she said, smile too tight, “I’d love to give you the next dance, but then whoever would my dear, dear betrothed find as a partne-”  
“My handmaid, I’m sure, will be glad to have the chance to dance with a strapping young lord,” Scratch said, chortling like any indulgent old man. “That is, if Lord Zahhak has no qualms about dancing with a lowborn maid?”  
“He won’t mind a bit,” Vriska said, an unwitting smirk on her face.  
“Excellent. Damara -“ Scratch turned and beckoned to a woman who came from the crowd, seeming to appear from nowhere at all. Her head was down, but her dress - half green and half white - was the wrong color for her sunkissed skin and the thick curls of black hair that threatened to escape the bun in which they were bound.

“I have a treat for you,” Scratch said to her, “A dance with this fine lord. Enjoy yourself for once. Though not too much, my dear.” Smiling calmly, Scratch all but shoved the young woman into Equius’s arms as he himself swept Vriska off into the next dance.

Equius looked down. The woman looked up. And suddenly, Equius found himself back in the arms of his beloved.  
His voice was shocked and low, all but a death rattle. “ _Aradia_.”


	10. Chapter 10

“That feather certainly draws the eye, Lady Serket,” Scratch complimented on the second waltz.  
Vriska grinned. “Doesn't it? You know I like to draw attention.”  
“Ah,” Scratch tilted his head to one side and looked up at his dance mate – she was a good head taller than him, “But is that so very wise?”  
She seemed confused. “Of course it's wise. It's brilliant. Attention is exactly what I want.”  
Scratch clicked his tongue disapprovingly, “It isn't a good move for a mage.”

That was all it really took to chastise her; Vriska got the message and visibly bristled. “...I'm not a _mage_ ,” she argued, “I just want the training.”  
“Goals aside, while you're under my tutelage-” Scratch went on, maddeningly placid as ever.  
But Vriska cut him off. “I'm still more important than you, Scratch. You can't order me around.”  
He blinked those pale, pale water-green eyes at her. “As a Serket, then. Your House is not well-suited to grandiose displays.”

The song ended and Vriska seemed about to say something biting (and loud) but Scratch turned it away with words like an advanced parry. “My old bones grow weary of this dancing. Come, introduce me to your peers.” He was leading her off of the floor and into the crowd before Vriska knew what hit her.

~~~

 

“Aradia!”  
Equius was incapable of believing his eyes. Aradia. _His Aradia._ The most courageous, beautiful, kind, brilliant woman he had ever known. The only woman he would ever love. The woman he had lost, and found, and lost again. The woman he had begun to take for dead. She was here, in his arms. He couldn't believe it, but his joy was quite unmatched.

There were differences, of course. Of course there would be! After a year apart. Of course. Her hair was tied back in a way he'd never seen her wear before, for one. Usually she let it fly loose and free down her back, perhaps a braid... he'd never seen it bound up this way, in a bun with hair sticks to hold it. But he'd never seen her at court, either, so that made sense. And that dress... a wool twill cote-hardie, bisected so that one half of the dress was bleached pure white and the other was vivid green. The sleeves of the kirtle beneath peeked through, a ruddy red murry color.  
The colors didn't suit her, actually. They washed her out unpleasantly, though Equius would have found her alluring dressed in a barrel.  
But the wool was familiar... the two dresses she had owned back when they'd traveled had been her own, and both wool. That had been obvious, what with her sheep and all.

Familiar, too, was the necklace on her breastbone. It was just the same, a delicate gold chain holding a brilliant red gem. If anything the gem glowed brighter now, sparkling and catching the light as if it lived and breathed.  
And above it, Aradia's beautiful face. The cheekbones seemed higher. Had she lost whatever she'd had of baby fat? But she'd not had that when he met her, had she? She was curvier then than she was now. Her already beautiful lips seemed narrower, and their quirk a little more taunting. Cruel, as opposed to playful. Her eyes matched the sentiment. They sent a shiver down Equius's spine that might not have been entirely rooted in his pure joy to see her.

“Aradia,” he said urgently, finding it hard to leave off repeating her name. When she didn't respond, he said it again, halting, hesitant. “ _Aradia?_ ”  
She looked up at him, bright red-brown eyes tilted and heavy-lidded. Her lips parted, and Equius held his breath as she spoke:

“Who?”

~~~

Vriska looked half ready to topple over with boredom. Suddenly she was very much regretting ever thinking to introduce Terezi and Scratch. It seemed that both were quite taken with matters of the law. And both refused to shut the Hell up about it.  
After about ten minutes of this, she’d heard enough. “I think I need to check in with my dear lady mother,” she excused herself, turning and leaving abruptly.

The two seemed too wrapped up in their conversation to care, and only nodded their goodbyes out of politeness before returning to their conversation. The only thing worse than being bored was being ignored, and Vriska fumed away. The two continued as if Vriska had been nothing but a means to their end. (She had been.)

“So my dearest Vriska tells me that you are quite the gifted magician,” Terezi remarked, using the courtly term for his magics. Magician - it lessened the power in some way, making his terrible manipulations into parlour tricks.  
Scratch took it with grace. “Quite,” he agreed, “I would even more consider myself a scholar of the arcane.”  
“A scholar,” repeated Terezi, “Is that what Vriska will be?”  
Scratch smiled. “Something along those lines, yes.”

~~~

A cold, wet, sick feeling raced down Equius's spine and filled his stomach. That was not Aradia's voice.  
“I do crave my lord's pardon...” she went on, “I think he must have me confused for someone else.”  
Aradia's voice was bright, clear, nearly musical to Equius's ears. This voice was harsher, lower, less refined. Aradia had been remarkably well-spoken for one of her birth. This person sounded self-indulgently rough, as if she _could_ speak well, but gained greater enjoyment by obfuscating her words with an accent. And it had a rumble to it, a sensual roll of the muscles that laced the thick accent with something foreign and tempting, some self-indulgent, heady drug.

“Does my lord think I look like a lover?” the not-Aradia filled the void where Equius was unable to speak. She was leading the dance, too. “My name is Damara. But if it is a lover that I bring to mind, perhaps I wouldn't mind if my lord wishes to call me by her name.”   
Aradia would never have been so aggressive, so overtly sexual in her words. This delivery had a smirk. And Equius didn't know what to do.

~~~

“Ah, Sir Scratch,” Terezi interrupted the flow of their conversation suddenly, leaning over to snatch the sleeve of a passing figure in the crowd. Like a fish on a line, Gamzee Makara was reeled in by the tiny woman, yanked into place to flop about in front of Scratch. The Makara heir scowled down at Lady Pyrope, sharp teeth bared. How she’d been able to tell it was him only the Twelves knew. Possibly the strong scent of drink and anger that clouded in his wake.

Terezi ignored his glaring. “Lord Makara,” she said, “I’d like to introduce Lady Vriska’s tutor. Sir Scr-”  
“We’ve met,” a low grumble interrupted her.  
Terezi’s head whipped around, ginger hair shaking as she did so. “Have you?” she said, clearly surprised.  
Scratch nodded to confirm it. “Indeed. The Makara family and I are rather long-time acquaintances. I’ve known our dear Lord Gamzee here since he was of a height with me.” He chuckled, disarming as any old man and his memories, and fooling no one.

Gamzee's towering figure hovered over both Scratch and Terezi, lingering for a moment after yanking his puffed purple-slashed-green silk sleeve out of the girl’s grasp. “No need to be grabbing a man,” Gamzee said down at her.  
Terezi’s ever-present guard - hanging back up to this point - looked skeptical for a moment, and his hand flexed on the hilt of his broadsword. But Terezi waved a subtle hand, quickly regaining her composure. She bade Gamzee a sly smirk. “No profanity, Lord Makara? You must be on your best manners today.”  
He snorted and took a step back. “There’s drink to be had and you’re keeping me from it, sister,” he said. On that note he gave the Dragonknight the oddest of nods (odder still, the guard returned it) and retreated into the crowd.

“So much for that, then,” Terezi said to Scratch. “Where were we? Oh yes. I had a question for you...”

~~~

For all his confusion and bewilderment, one thing was quickly becoming clear: this person was _not_ Aradia. Not even a lying Aradia. Not even an Aradia held in the thrall of some dark spell. This was quite simply not her.

Yes the body was the same. Equius could feel that much, as his hands conformed to well-known curves and familiar forms. This face he’d gazed into. Those lips he’d kissed half to death. That neck he’d devoured. These hips he’d held. These tiny hands that his fingertips had brushed so many times. He _knew_ this body, knew it like he knew no other.  
But the other half of that coin was Aradia. She knew his body more intimately than any other person ever had. And from the difference in treatment, Equius could feel that these hands did not lay with her intent.

The touch was far from cold. If anything it was overly familiar. These hands he knew wandered him in ways Aradia’s never would, as if they had seen a map but never traveled the land itself. This stranger seemed to feel confident, but overly so, to the point of cockyness. Aradia had been bold, but she knew when to yield.

This was not his Aradia. He knew it. So what was it, then, that wore her skin so well?

She kept on talking at him, as if he could absorb any of it. He couldn’t. All he could do was wonder when this song would end. Wonder what stranger he held in his arms.

~~~

“I’m afraid that pride is a center state of our Lady Serket,” Scratch smiled. Terezi had asked him to see if he could teach Vriska some level of humility. The idea was amusing to him. “I doubt that there would be much in my power to curtail that trait.” He was lying, naturally. He could break just about anyone of just about anything. But ridding Vriska of her pride would run counter to his aims, and there would be no function in it other than to add useless cost.  
“Ah, but you must understand,” said the redheaded young aristocrat, “She’s become so much more inflated since having your lessons.”

Scratch would have expect as much. Magic went to most people’s heads, and Vriska was the least body immune to pride Scratch had ever seen. He nodded slowly, opening the way for Lady Pyrope to air her complaints in full.

Which Terezi was perfectly content to do. “The other night,” she explained, not quite following her own common sense in confiding this, “she dragged me to her chambers simply to flash about some item or another she’d gained. Some magic ball.”  
Suddenly she had Scratch’s undivided attention. His head turned very sharply. “Ball?”

“Yes...” Terezi slowed, “A ball. Heavy and smooth. I couldn’t divine anything from it, of course, but she informed me that with the use of her sights spells gained from you she could read the future... probably all nonsense, but it’s the bragging that-”  
“ _What_ ,” Scratch interrupted again, voice suddenly grave and low, “Did you say she had?”  
“A ball of some kind. A heavy orb,’ Terezi clarified, seemingly careless of the item itself.  
“And she has it?” demanded the man.  
“Yes yes,” Terezi frowned impatiently, “Why? Should she not?”

For a moment the outlines of the pale man seemed to spark and he looked like a wick near the stub... but it died down and he suppressed it as the music of the dance around them climbed to a close. He inhaled and let it out slowly through his nose.  
“I’ll have to have a word with my pupil,” he said far more casually than seemed right, considering how he’d just acted. “You’re quite right, I think. Her pride is proving an issue.”

~~~

The song ended and Equius and Samara swirled to a stop. They broke apart and bowed - Damara for manners (though she wore a cheeky smirk as she did so), Equius because he was too confused to do much of anything that wasn’t memorized by rote.  
Smiling at him in a way that seemed leading, Damara slunk off the dance floor, returning to her master’s side. Scratch turned his head, grazed his glance over Equius, and then smiled at his handmaid.

Equius hung back, watching but unable to hear the exchange as Scratch greeted his servant and then pulled himself from his conversation with Lady Pyrope. All involved nodded graciously and Terezi gave the pale man and his girl a sharp but cautious smile - a departure from the usual machete’s edge of her grin.  
It didn’t settle well with Lord Zahhak. As Scratch and Damara melted back into the crowds and vanished from the room and Terezi turned to find a new conversational partner, Equius was left frowning and edging his way to the back of the room to brood.

~~~

Scratch caught Vriska in the halls on her way back to the Serket quarters.

“My dear pupil,” Scratch grabbed Vriska by the upper arm, stopping her in her tracks. For such a frail-looking man, his grip was a vise. “Lady Pyrope has just told me the most fascinating thing.”  
“Get off me, you pale old man,” she snarled, wrenching back but finding herself - a trained warrior and an assassin by craft - unable to break the hold of his bony hand.  
“... a fascinating thing,” he plowed right along, heedless of her continued struggles. “Concerning a certain item of mine. A certain _orb_.”

Vriska froze and her eyes widened with alarm.  
They wouldn't stay so for long.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! My little sister just graduated high school, so it's ben a little nuts over here. I'll try to get back to updating though. I promise this story will not be abandoned. It's written... just have to remember to post it! Keep me on it, guys. Thanks for sticking with.

The rehearsal dinner was torture. Equius did not want to be there, not an ounce. After his “meeting” with “Damara”, he no longer felt sure of anything. In fact, he felt as if he knew next to nothing at all.  
The things he _did_ know felt simple and stupid. Vriska had been with him all morning, chatting loudly, but had left to change into a new dress for the evening and had quite vanished. The prince-to-be was all aglow, but the princess looked on the verge of bolting. Equius caught her glance moving towards the doors more than once. So, too, Gamzee seemed on edge and intent to talk with Terezi, who in turn looked more irritated than anything else.

The feast itself was about to begin, but Vriska had not reappeared, forcing those at the high table to reshuffle slightly. It was all Equius could do to play the gracious fiance and insist that a free seat be left at his side, just to force some space between himself and Lord Makara, who for reasons unknown had seemed to be keeping himself only to the most mild of ciders.  
The first course had been set down when in through the open doors waltzed a most unwelcome (at least from Equius's perspective) figure.

Scratch swept into the room not as though he owned it, but as though it was a chunk of land on sale, and he was appraising it prior to purchase. His eye was critical, darting and sweeping, missing nothing, and his lips were drawn in a false smile.  
One step to the side and two steps behind, back stiff and straight, hands clasped before her, chin up, face forward, eyes boldly ahead, was his handmaid. That _Damara_.

Aradia or not, Equius was loathe to see her looking so. Green was really not her color.  
Dark as she was in hair and tan as she was in complexion, green was not flattering for Aradia Megido. She was made for rich reds, ocean blues, blood browns. Deep colors suited her perfectly, picking up the fire shades in her eyes and hair and amplifying them for the entire room to appreciate.  
Light colors washed her out. They dulled her hair and brilliant eyes, and reminded her warm skin that it’s shade had been earned outside, and that was where it ought to have remained.  
The green-trimmed-white dress she wore proved a poor choice.  
In spite of her dress, she was as fair as ever, her hair neatly smoothed back into a twisting, folding bun at the nape of her neck, her face powdered to better match the other women at court. She carried herself as if she had never stepped foot on a farm in her life. As if she’d spent all her days within the walls of a city. As if the ideas of war parties and sheep herding were utterly foreign concepts.

If she saw Equius, she didn’t show it. She did not look at anyone, and kept her face impassive as she and Scratch walked past everyone, and sank to her knees at the foot of the dais. Scratch remained standing at her side.  
“My Empress,” she addressed in a voice clear and steady, ringing in the shocked still, “It’s my honor to present my Scratch.”  
If Equius expected   
the Empress to toss out the rabble, he was sorely disappointed. He glanced to his ruler, only to find her smiling. “You're late,” she chastised in her chocolate-smooth voice (bitter chocolate, void of an ounce of sugar, as those who understood her words would know).  
Scratch stepped forth, in front of his handmaid. “Dear Empress, I know it. I was attending to other matters.”  
“And is Lady Vriska to join us this evening?” the Empress questioned, raising a flawless thin brow.  
“Ah, I fear she is feeling poorly this evening,” Scratch said, earning looks of surprise and alarm from the Marquis and Lady Aranea. “Naturally she sends her regards and regrets. I'm sure she'll be much improved by tomorrow evening.”  
“I see,” the Empress frowned. That simple sentence had placed Vriska's feet on some mightily shaky ground. “Well, best you fill her place for now, then.”  
“With great pleasure, Empress,” Scratch said with a smile like an oil slick. He ascended to the dais and settled into the seat between Equius and Gamzee, with his servant hovering right at his back.

~~~

Never had Damara thought that she would be in such a position. Standing between a mad jester and a controlling little man, watching the two of them discuss religion as if it were the most fascinating topic either of them had ever entertained. It very well could have been. For Damara's part, she was just bored half to tears.  
“Gonna have to tell you, my man,” said the young head of the Makara household, “I understand what you're sayin' about the powers. I feel you on the fires and all that...” He leaned back and scratched the back of his neck, “But I dunno about your lord. I don't think the Messiahs are all about that shit.”  
“Give it time, Lord Makara,” Scratch said benevolently. He spoke like an indulgent grandfather, a role he played most expertly, as Damara had seen many times, in this life as well as her last.  
“You can't expect to embrace all aspects of my Lord's brilliance right away,” he went on, gesturing mildly in the air with a limp, careless hand.  
Up above Damara, the ceiling seemed like it would be a much better thing to consider than the words spilling from Lord Makara's mouth and sliding like oil from Scratch's lips. The pink stone was so much more interesting than this dull, dull, endless blather.  
Never had Damara thought that she'd be so _bored_ in the middle of a feast.  
“Gonna try to convince me then, fuc-err, my man?” Lord Gamzee Makara was at least attempting to censor himself.  
Let me assure you, my dear Lord Makara-” Scratch went on, and then kept right on going, enthralled with the sound of his own voice.  
 _'You would think he would run out of steam sooner or later...'_ Damara thought to herself, shifting her weight slowly from one foot to the next to avoid the fatigue that threatened from how long she'd been standing. They'd been at this for ages now, nearly an hour.  
“Down in your soul, I'm sure that you'll one day understand that I am in the right. You'll come around to my way of thinking, Lord Makara. Sooner or later.” Scratch smiled like a cat, like he was so very clever and so very sly. Damara could have retched right there on the floor.  
“Never thought of it that way,” Gamzee said. “Never really thought that there could be more than one way about it.” He shrugged and stretched. Damara prayed that that meant he was getting bored enough to wrap up this conversation once and for all.  
“Gonna try to get what you mean,” the greasy-haired lord assured the pale man. “But for now, there's dancing. And I got my eyes on a pretty little page I saw running around. You feel my meaning, my man?” He cracked a grin, manic and alarming .  
“Run along then,” Scratch said, nodding and shooing Gamzee. The young man took the chance and bolted. The possibility of a lay beckoned, a stronger pull than an old man's religious ramble. Damara didn't blame him.  
“Around this point in your career with me,” Scratch said, lowering his voice and not turning to Damara. “You should be catching on to my little speech. You should be able to repeat it at will to all the other lords and ladies in court, adjusting as needed, of course. Whatever it takes to convince them. And it's always better to attempt a conversion before getting rid of what might prove a powerful ally.” He tented his bony fingers. “You should be able to do this as soon as I tell you to.”  
“And if I don't?” Damara questioned, making her master raise a brow.  
“Desert your rebellion, dear daughter,” he said softly, “You would be better served if you allowed yourself to give in and accept your fate. You are my daughter, and my servant. My handmaid. For now and for the rest of your days, you are only as I've made you. So drop your attitude and your flippancy.” At the very end, his tone turned to a subtle threat.  
“...You are right, of course,” Damara said with a smile they both knew was false. “I shall just have to be better in the future.” When Scratch settled back into eating the smile turned into a smirk. Her life had been so terrible dull in this body. She had to get her kicks somehow.

And it seemed that the young Lord Zahhak was still staring at her. This could prove enjoyable. Her tongue twitched behind her lips and she itched to toss a barb his way, some little taunt or tease. But her father was two steps ahead, as ever.  
“Come, Damara,” he stood, chair nearly sliding into her as he pushed out, “We have a couple to mentor.”  
He gestured and Damara caught sight of the princess ducking out the door of the hall, Lord Ampora hot on her heels. Her smirk returned as she followed Scratch down from the table and into the hall.


	12. Chapter 12

It was all just too much. Equius’s room was too oppressive, appearances at court were too draining, having to stand there and bear watching the love of his life pretend not to know him was more than Equius could take. For all his strength, for all his toughness and ferocity – both physical and mental – Equius didn't think he could handle it if this kept up much longer. He didn't want to be here in the first place, didn't care much for anything since losing Aradia... but he had been _coping_. He'd been surviving, day to day, focusing on and living for the people he ruled and for the sake of his duty. The Gods would not have sent him to be born into the life he had if they did not mean for him to live up to it.

But seeing Aradia... this alleged _Damara_... it hurt. It truly, deeply hurt. The ache in his chest was like picking the scabs and scars off of the wound he'd felt when Aradia was stolen from him.  
The first time, he'd been motivated by the passion and rage that came with the fresh bloodlust, the powerful urge to rescue her. When he'd found her again, he'd been so consumed with joy such as he had never felt, that it filled him, leaving little room for anything else.  
And then, when he'd lost her again it felt so futile. So hopeless. To come down from the high of being madly in love and reunited to suddenly having no way of knowing if his lady-love was alive, or if he'd ever see her again, hit him like an arrow through his belly, dragging him to his knees.

And now he was just so confused. He thought he had her back when he saw her, but this woman was a stranger to him. She didn't react like his Aradia at all. But her face was unmistakable. As was the bastard who called her his handmaid.  
Equius didn't know what to do anymore.

But he did know that he had to get out of there. Away from the on-edge Lord Makara, away from the demanding Empress, away from Vriska and all the prying questions of the lower courtiers. Even if all he could do was take a long walk through the halls, at least it was _something_.

Lord Zahhak stalked through the halls, his bulk making his thoughtless footfalls heavy and echoing as he made his way away from the crowded part of the palace, going off in some direction that seemed vaguely familiar enough to get him away without getting him lost. But he didn't make it to his destination.

The lord paused mid-step. He heard muffled voices.  
Equius carefully set his heavy booted foot down on the marble stones, soundless as only one trained in such could know to be. Just on the shadowed side of the curve of the hall, he stopped to listen.

“Don’t _touch me_ , Eridan!”  
“Princess, w-we’re _engaged_. You’re promised to _me_ , and w-we’ll be marryin’ _tomorrow-w_. If I w-wanna’ hold your hand, I’m damn w-well allow-wed to do it!”

Lord Zahhak had never been one to snoop. It was none of his business was someone had to say to someone else. None at all. And he had no desire to pry. Subterfuge and sneaking was the domain of his odious fiancée and her ilk, not of his house, nor of his own person. But he _knew_ these voices. And he knew that to interrupt could go poorly for him at one end of them or the other.

“You don’t own me, Eridan! I am still your Princess, and you don’t have my leave to talk to me like that!”

The Princess and the son of the highest ranking family. Similar in age and interests, friends from youth. Attractive standing side by side. Advantageous on all accounts. And they got on well, as was widely reported and, Equius would dare say, crowed about. The perfect match.  
But perhaps not so perfect as advertised? This did not sound like the talk of close young lovers, after all.

“Fef, you’re bein’ unreasonable. Just let me-”  
“Shush!”  
“Fef, I-”  
“Eridan, shut up. Someone’s-”

For a heart-freezing moment, Equius was quite sure that they had spotted him (though he’d not moved an inch), or heard him (though he’d made no sound). But the junction of the halls fit more than only two paths, and it was someone else entirely who’d intruded the pair’s whispered fighting.

“Scratch!” the Princess said, voice going up in pitch suddenly as it became pleasant with the skill of a practiced actress. “You’re far from your wing.”  
“Ah, my lady,” came the whisper-soft reply, the voice that Lord Zahhak so hated, “Am I interrupting something?”  
“Not at all!” Princess Feferi said just a moment too quickly.

Equius took the risk of peeking out around the corner. The Princess in her long, classical gown with its hundreds of tiny, even knife pleats pooling around her, a mermaid’s tail of whisper-soft pink silk, gold glinting on her arms, her ears, her girdle, her neck... topped by the glinting gold and pink circlet over her long hair in its complicated formal braids. She smiled, and if it was false it was a convincing false.  
Lord Ampora stood just behind her, looking quite irked by the intrusion and making little attempt to conceal it. He looked ridiculous a ever, the puff of his doublet sleeves too much over the tight leggings that did no favors to his scrawny legs. The shock of purple in his blonde hair was odd looking - something picked up from the strange customs of the island peoples the Amporas governed by technicahallity.   
_No Warrior,’_ Equius had to scoff to himself.  
He wore an embarrassment of rings and chains, his clothes all purpled slashed with gold. The Amporas flaunted their wealth overmuch, Lord Zahhak always found.

In comparison to the two nobles, Scratch look nearly shabby. Or he would have, were he not so absolutely meticulous with what he did wear. His robes of white and green bore no fading or stain. His wispy white hair was combed and oiled back neatly from his face, which was shaved without a nic or shadow. He was barely taller than the Princess, quite clearly dwarfed by the tall, scrawny Ampora heir.  
But the short man seemed far from held back by this. He conversed with the two highest-ranking noble heirs as if it was no bother at all.

After a few moments of politeness and pleasantries, Feferi excused herself. “It’s been lovely, as always,” she said, all politeness and courtly proper language, “But there’s so much to be done for the wedding, and I really ought not be without a chaperone around my betrothed. My royal mother would be cross with me.” She laughed lightly, as if this was all some cute little formality. As if she hadn’t been trying to escape only moments ago.  
Both gentlemen bowed low to the princess, and she curtsied briefly before turning and rushing away down the hall with a whisper of fabric over marble, blessedly in the opposite direction from Equius’s hiding place.

When she was safely out of earshot, Scratch turned to Lord Eridan with a plainly worrying look.  
“W-what?” the heir demanded tersely. “W-what’s the face for?”  
“Nothing in my place to state...” Scratch apologized, weaving his elusiveness so tantalizingly that it was impossible for Lord Amora not to take the bait.  
“W-well I giv-ve you leav-ve!” he stammered, “Go on!”

It was just what Scratch had been waiting for. But he managed not to grin. Instead, he looked only concerned. “Well, Lord Ampora, it’s been in my experience that brides the day before their weddings tend to be...” he seemed to search the air for a word, “ _joyful_. Excited. Not so hesitant.”  
Eridan worried his thin lower lip. Scratch continued.  
“Of course, there is always the apprehension of a maiden before her wedding night. But that is usually tempered with such a blushing ignorance. It does not strike me as the same.”

The silence hung in the hall, heavier almost than the words themselves.  
“I hate to suggest it, Lord Ampora-”  
“Then don’t,” he hissed back.  
“But...” Scratch plowed on, “Are you positive your betrothed has been entirely... _faithful_?”  
“That’s fuckin’ treason just to suggest,” Eridan said, clearly growing upset. His neck was flushing with blood, and his pallid complexion was turning a ruddy, blotchy red.  
“It would be,” Scratch agreed with a nod, “If I meant it in only physical matters. Which I never would. To cast doubt on the purity of the princess...” He clicked his tongue in a tut-ing sound of disapproval. “But the heart is as important as anything else. And you must be sure to guard your lady’s. If it belongs to another, you’ll never really have her, Lord Ampora.”

Scratch’s voice was gravely serious, but lofty, as if he was bestowing sage wisdom upon young, hapless Eridan. He reached out and set a half-skeletal pale hand on the lad’s shoulder. the height difference would have been comical in any other setting.  
“If you don’t have her heart, you don’t have her. And if you don’t have her, she does not have you. And if she won’t have you... neither will the Empire.” He crafted his words so masterfully. It was amazing to witness.

Especially since it was so clearly working. Eridan looked alarmed. “W-what do I do, then?” he breathed.  
“Hold her, my lad,” Scratch's tone had grown downright familiar, “Bind her tight to you. Don’t leave her any room for another. And whatever you do, you must not let her slip from your arms. You’ll both be glad of the suffocation some day.”  
Eridan nodded, looking both pale and flushed with stress. He was breathing harder, too. Was this magic? Or was Scratch just so talented in his wordcraft that it had this powerful of an effect?

The pale man patted the heir on the shoulder. “I’d start now, were I you,” he advised. And Eridan took him up on it, nodding and murmuring a rushed thanks before dashing off down the hall after his fiancee.

Scratch stood and watched him go, then smoothed the front of his pale robes and headed down a different hall... it took Equius a second to snap out of it and realize that Scratch was headed right for him.  
He stepped out from behind the half-pillar moulding that had concealed him and attempted to look entirely natural. He didn’t expect it to fool Scratch, but perhaps at least he wouldn’t realize how much the lord had realized.

“Ah, Lord Zahhak,” Scratch paused to bow, forcing Equius to pause and exchange the gesture. “Are your rooms too close for you as well then? Out for a stroll?” He smiled with his thin, colorless lips. Equius wanted to chop off his head.  
“No,” he said tersely. His eyes flicked to the junction of halls, considering what alibi they could provide for him. They flicked back down. “I’m on my way to the chapel.”  
Scratch nodded. “Praying for a healthy union for the two high born lovebirds?” he questioned masterfully.  
“...Something like that,” Equius said, not wanting to trip into the hole Scratch wanted to dig around him. “And I’m later to it than I wish to be. So if you’ll excuse me.” He bowed lightly and ducked around the tiny man.

Scratch smiled to himself as he bowed back and swiveled seamlessly to watch the retreating lord. “Ah yes... can’t let those flames left to burn eat up all the wick.”  
“No, can’t have that,” Equius agreed, mouth going dry and cottony even as he made it down the other hall and fled the scene, seeking as much distance as he could put between himself and that magic bastard.

~~~

Scratch watched and listened until the heavy footfalls were out of earshot. Oversized oaf, like any Zahhak. Predictable.  
He swept down the hall, white and green hem of his robe trailing along the rushes. “Damara,” he spoke her name like a command as soon as he reached his rooms.

The young woman appeared as if she’d been behind him the whole time, rather than merely lurking in their borrowed sitting room. She smiled but didn’t say anything.  
Scratch choose his words carefully before speaking. “Lord Zahhak. He’s proving himself... problematic. Eliminate his resistance, won’t you, my dear?”

Damara twisted her hair into a tighter bun, letting only two long strands at the front fall free to frame her face. “And you propose I do this how?” she questioned, “In what manner?”  
“Seduce him,” Scratch scoffed, as if it was all so obvious, “What you’re best at, my dear. Your proclivities and his obsession with your borrowed body will more than do the trick.”  
The handmaid smirked. This was exactly the answer she was hoping for. “And where will I find him?”  
“The chapel. Wait for him to be alone. But feel free to exploit the irony as you see fit,” her master allowed.

Damara’s borrowed red-brown eyes sparked in time with her cut-gem necklace. “Consider it done,” she promised. Perfect.


	13. Chapter 13

_Eight Months Ago_

“Easy now, my dear,” said the pale, bony man. “There’s no use in rushing it. Time is of the essence, but not worth the time it would waste us if you snap one of these legs.”  
Damra could have snapped his scrawny neck. “You do not think I am trying?” she spat through teeth clenched tight.  
Scratch was unfazed. “Not in the least,” he replied, “However, you push too much too soon. If you fall and injure yourself you’ll set back your recovery time. And that’s no welcome for the new shape, now is it?”

The young woman rolled her eyes. “Always the condescending one, father,” she said unhappily.  
The man raised a brow in response. “And you are always the insolent one.” A tiny spark of green light cracked and popped at the back of Damara’s neck, and she inhaled sharply at the smart of it. She shot Scratch a glare and he smiled calmly back at her.

Scratch crossed the study to settle into a wide armchair. This was not his personal study - more of a library. The impressive collection of books and scrolls were bound in gilt and green leather, making one book very like the next. Perhaps only Scratch knew the exact order or location of each book. Perhaps even he didn’t know.  
The room was what you might expect of any dull library - books along the walls, a few tables and some arm chairs - but it had been rearranged slightly to accommodate a wide space in the middle. A runner rug had been set up, and two long poles had been set hovering at roughly waist height along either side. This track was there for Damara, re-learning how to walk in a cumbersome new body.

These legs were not her own. Nor were these arms, this head. She’d already oiled and pulled the obnoxious curly hair into submission, fastening it up high on her head and securing it with numerous pins. She’d figured out how to dress herself, though this body was wider and shorter than her own. Damara never had so many curves; she had been a naturally bony thing, like her father.  
Talking was still a hassle. It was harder to manipulate this mouth that wasn’t hers. Words proved cumbersome and they were thickly accented, making her sound baseborn. Though Damara would lie to say she didn’t rather like that. It made her sound dirty and disgraced, and she could see that Scratch didn’t care for it. _Perfect._

She’d thought she’d escaped him once. When she’d been dead. She really hadn’t done it on purpose, though he seemed to think she had, but she had to admit that it had been a delightful respite while it lasted. Damara had been under the impression that the grave’s embrace would last forever. She’d been wrong, obviously, and cursed it as she forced her clumsy legs to fucking _move_ when she told them to.  
The loss of her freedom was bad enough. The loss of her body added insult to the injury. And hadn’t her dear father always taught her not to abide by insult? But without those things - freedom, he proper form - she couldn’t do much to take revenge. So Damara was left to a sulky attitude, eye rolling, and constant willfulness. Whatever little things she could do to make Scratch’s day all the harder. If it got her shocked, so what? It was all worth it for her long-haul victory. She had always been much more patient than her father gave her credit for.

It took Damara another five minutes to walk a distance that anyone else would have finished in a thoughtless moment. It infuriated her to be so weak, and of course Scratch was more pleased about it than she was.  
“You’ve lost another ten counts on your time,” he said, smiling at her, “Very good. You ought to be running efficiently in no time.” Time. It was always time with him. He liked to keep everything like a well-oiled, sensible clock. Always wound tight. Tight as his ass, Damara figured. “You’ve earned this, my girl.” A flick of his two fingers, and a seat slid across the room to the end of the track. This wasn’t a comfortable, overstuffed armchair. This was a hard wooden seat without so much as a cushion. But Damara wasn’t in a good position to complain, and she accepted it with a huff.

“How much longer, then,” she asked him, dark reddish brown eyes (not her’s; her’s had been vivid green, though these almost seemed to flash it at times, as she grew stronger) looking over at the man, “If you say I’m coming along so quickly.”  
Scratch, for once, seemed to take her question seriously, and looked thoughtful rather than his usual dismissive. “Oh not more than a fortnight,” he said after a moment. “Provided you work hard.” He began to rearrange a few papers on his desk.

“I mislike working hard,” Damara informed him, voice thick with distaste.  
“Perhaps so,” Scratch allowed, “But it makes it no less your given duty.”  
Damara rolled her eyes. Not this again.  
“You do remember all I told you?” Scratch said, “Back before your little incident?”  
She groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose, “Yes, yes,” she waved him away testily, “I know the tale. You have told it to me half a hundred times now, father.” She could feel a story coming on, and she wouldn’t say she was pleased about it.

But Scratch would not be deterred. “You’re special, Damara,” he said, pausing in his work and looking over at the young woman with his watery, muted green eyes. “You have a sacred mission.”  
“Why must you still call it that?” Damara said quickly, trying to cut him short, “You say yourself: Lord English is no god. So many times, father, you have claimed that the gods never were real. Why try to tell me that my birthright is so holy?”  
Unfortunately for Damara, this attempt at distraction only made Scratch’s smile widen. She scowled as he said, “Ah, my dear, dear child-” she despised being called a child, and he knew it, and might have smirked a trifle at her scowl. “A god, he may not be, but Lord English has power enough to make the world tremble.” Something of a dreamy, thoughtful look passed over Scratch’s face. “Imagine, child, a man born low and lame, but so bent on power that he let nothing stand in his way as he sought out the arts and magics forbidden to him. He rose as a warlord, and greater in his time. If not for the unfortunate timing of fate’s intervention, he’d rule over us all.”

“If he were as strong as all that, he would not have fallen,” Damara scoffed, earning her a zap of electricity like a cuff to the ear.  
“You’d do well to learn your lessons from our Lord. Risen from nothing to be made into a force of power - he is not so unlike yourself.”  
Damara rubbed her ear and scowled. Scratch continued on, regaining his neat composure.

“He did not fall. He merely stumbled. He’s alive still, dormant, but slowly rousing. And though he is far too proud to apply such words to it, he is in need of prudent aid. Our aid, dear daughter.” He smiled like an oil slick. “Lord English went into dormancy over two hundred years hence. enough time for kingdoms to rise and fall, enough time for fools to call what made their ancestors right tremble just a story to frighten children. They are wrong, of course.” He shrugged, and the movement looked out of place on him, and unsettling. “He needs us to move on these nations he has never heard of. He needs us to exploit their weaknesses, of which there are so many. He doesn’t know them. He is not omnipotent.

“Still, he designs to call himself godly. And he may yet be so. The power of a name is nothing to laugh at, Damara. It may yet ward off those who would otherwise challenge him. It is strong. Though, of course, hubris is a powerful strength in its own right.” Pale lips smirked. It was clear that Scratch did not think much of the Lord he served.

Damara was growing tired of being lectured. She flexed her legs from ankle to knee to hip, rotating joints and willing them, angrily, to come together and obey their new mistress. Scratch, who seemed to be taking her restlessness as encouragement (or else he was too pleased to torment the woman to stop this far into the game), continued on with his blathering.

“You wouldn’t be in your little predicament had you been obedient from the start.” Damara opened her mouth to protest, but Scratch cut her short with a dangerous drop in his voice, “-Save it. You didn’t need to fall for a peasant, no matter how pleasing you thought him. You didn’t need to follow him off as if you had any right to a life with such a common-blooded boy. You know what makes your heart beat. I warned you what would happen should you break it.” He frowned severely at her, and for once, Damara knew better than to open her mouth.  
After a lingering silence, Scratch continued. “You owe a great deal to me. Everything you are. The least you could have done was stick to the plan. It was more important than you, and you knew that. And really I asked so little of you.” His bone thin, bone white hand made a foppish, wishy-washy gesture in the air. “Enter the palace of the Empress as a handmaid. Gain her trust and end her in her sleep. It would have been so _easy!_ ” For a moment, Scratch almost seemed to lose his cool composure. Damara’s eyes widened as he grit his teeth, but it faded down again, receding like floodwaters after a tidal wave. He smoothed back his colorless hair. “Fine dresses and pretty parties and all you had to do was a single bolt at the right time. I asked you for so very little.” He shook his head in disappointment.

“Your death derailed my plan for thirty years. Thirty long years. You know how special you were, your existence. It was nearly impossible for me to find the proper body again. and then I had to train her. Even now, the Aradia girl proved so difficult that you don’t fit her without seams.” He didn’t like this train of thought, and neither did Damara. “First you have your unattractive rebellious phase, and then that damnable Lord Zahhak gets in my way. Ah... but... I do imagine that the world never can go as smoothly as we’d please, can it?” He didn’t quite seem to believe it. If anything it looked like he thought the world should always shift to accommodate him. Shift... or he’d _make_ it shift.

“Repeat to me the plan girl. The new one. I need to ensure that you will not fail me a second time.”  
Damara held back her urge to roll her eyes, but only just. “Infiltrate court. Sow discord. The Empire is only as powerful as its impotent little parts. If the high born asses can not get along, the little parts will separate. And without her little parts, The Empress will have nowhere to stand. And then I kill the bitch.” She grinned, red lips splitting wide to reveal a wide grin that the real Aradia would never have made.  
“Your language could stand improvement,” Scratch sniffed, “But in essence, you are correct... you are one of a kind, Damara. A girl raised and trained as you have been; I doubt you have a single peer in the Empire. If you disappoint me again, however, there shall be _no one_ like you in the Empire.” He shook his head and returned to stacking papers. “So no more attempts to run from your birthright just because you were tempted by a set of pretty common eyes and a baseborn cock.”

That did it. The self control Damara had been exhibiting fled her, and she stood in one fluid motion, crossing the room in four enraged strides to slam both hands furiously on Scratch’s ebony desk. “You know what, old man-” she spat, leaning over into his face.  
But he cut her off. “Ah, excellent,” he said with a benign smile, “You’re walking. I imagined it would only take the proper motivation.” He looked back to his papers dismissively. “Retire to your rooms, Damara. We’ll be leaving with the dawn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cryptic references to Damara's life are cryptic.   
> Extrapolate based on canon and you'll get a good idea of what happened to her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi yes I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my buddy Summer at palemarried.tumblr.com - she's drawn me some beautiful BoP fan art (check out her tag for it) and all of the religious ideas in BoP were inspired by her and her art.  
> Also she found the Easter Egg in chapter 11.  
> So yah. Wooo Summer!

Remaining in the company of the other nobility was proving too much for Equius. So it was a blessing that enough religion could always be a viable excuse to pardon oneself from the constant push of others. It was a weak excuse, purely cosmetic, and everyone knew it.   
The nobility had never been trained to be so devout. It got in the way of the brutal work that ruling entailed. Commoners were spoon fed (or force-fed, in some instances) religion with their mother’s milk and later with their daily bread. They needed it. Weak willed and stupid as they all were (though a nagging voice in Equius’s head that sounded almost like Aradia and almost like Nepeta challenged that, naming it a fiction), they needed belief in the gods to keep them in line. 

Nobility needed no such delusions. Aside from the fanatics of House Makara, religion was rarely considered so important. And the teachings of religion differed. Where it told commoners that life was service, it told the nobility and gentry that life was power. They were taught that they were so far above it all. They might be pious, but never were they repetent. Which was the opposite of how Equius was feeling.  
He was feeling like he needed forgiveness.

He was taught that he should never ask for forgiveness, and never want it. He was taught that he never needed. But he had so much to be sorry for.  
He couldn’t save Aradia. He couldn’t find her or take her away before it was too late. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her now.  
And his original intentions for her, for the woman he loved more than breath, had been so cruel. He’d meant to toy with her like a cat to a mouse, to have his way with her, before she had stunned him with her ability to be so much more. He was disgusted with himself for ever thinking of her that way.  
But even when he couldn’t save her, he was driven to distraction by her. He let his responsibilities slip and the world he managed crumble. He couldn’t just get on with his responsibilities - marry Lady Serket, manage to beget an heir, rule his lands, get on with his life. He’d been unable to do any of that.  
He couldn’t bring about an heir, and he would never be a father of any use. His basterds....  
He had killed his dearest friend. And he couldn’t even care for her children in her memory. His children.  
He was a failure. He’d done so much wrong. His expectations and his own desires met and pushed against each other - and each force was too strong to allow the other to win. His life was a standstill.

So he found his way to the Gods’ Hall, and stood there, a brute, a boulder of a man, out of place in the gold and silver and thick polished wood. It was gaudy here. Everything was decorated for the wedding tomorrow - garlands and wreaths of flowers hung heavy and thick over every empty surface.  
The stained glass windows stared down at him. Twelve, each portraying one of the child-gods, their symbols and colors. The upper houses and several of the banner-houses fit with certain gods, the Zahhaks included.

Thinking it fitting, he turned towards The Heir - a blue boy, god of strength and power. The Heir was the patron of House Zahhak, as well as Equius’s personal god, whom he had chosen when he was thirteen in a traditional ceremony.  
He didn’t know what he was expecting. Comfort, perhaps. But he didn’t find it. The Heir tended to be portrayed with a frown (if he had his head attached at all), and this frown looked disapproving, even angry. Like a little boy holding his breath until he got what he wanted, and what he wanted, Equius could not give.  
With a shudder, he looked away, setting his sights on another god, any other god. His first instinct was to turn to The Rogue. The green girl god of love. But her looked seemed so sad. Disappointed. It made him feel beyond any forgiveness at all.  
A glance to The Maid, a sweet but powerful red girl god of seasons and farming proved no better. She was a favorite of peasants. And the rams horns on her head only reminded him of the shepherdess he’d once kidnapped so unceremoniously.

Equius felt quite solitary, weak, and utterly beyond hope.

The tranquility of the holy space was cracked by footfalls on the marble flagstones. The hair rose on the back of his neck and his teeth set on edge. But he did not turn around, though he could not really have said why. Perhaps because of the watchful pale eyes of The Rogue, boring into Equius. She seemed to know exactly how ruined his thoughts really were.  
His revere maintained in posture, if not in spirit, was fully spoiled by a hand on his shoulder.  
“I would not have taken you for a godly man,” lilted a thick, lowborn accent.

It wasn’t Aradia. He _knew_ it wasn’t Aradia. But that light little touch of that so familiar hand on his shoulder was all it took to burn his skin to ash. Equius shivered, which frustrated him and made the not-Aradia behind him smile with the satisfaction of having gotten to him.

“I’m not,” Equius protested in a low, dry-mouth rumble.  
The hand pressed a little on the lord’s shoulder blade. “But you bow your head,” Damara insisted. It was hard to understand her, harder than it had been in the Hall. It struck Equius as purposeful. “What is it you pray for, my not-godly lord?”  
He had to frown, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to answer.

Damara’s hand traced across Equius’s arm, stroking a long trail up to his broad shoulder. “Is it sad for you, my lord?” she questioned, “To be without the gods?” Her touch smoldered right through his sleeve. “It is not so sad when you find a replacement,” she monologued. Something in her low voice sounded like sex, and it made Equius’s hackles raise.  
“You seem too lonesome... I could be a satisfactory replacement for you,” she crooned. Her hand traced down his arm, and her fine-tipped fingers drew circles on his wrist. “You need not be so cold, my lord.”

Equius began to draw away, but suddenly she gripped his wrist tight in hand that was small but alarmingly strong. Equius was a hardened warrior, but an attack from a slight handmaid in his lover’s body was surprising enough to make him hesitate. Damara used that time to force his hand around and clap it to her breast.  
He recoiled, snarling, but her grip alone was enough to root him.  
“Just _touch_ , my lord,” she smirked wickedly at him, “I’ll let you have it.”  
Equius’s upper lip curled, baring his teeth, even as the shock of soft cloth and pliant flesh below went directly to his groin. An attempt to yank away his hand was met with a stunning tightening of her fingers, more than he would have expected from a woman so slight.

The two were bathed in chunks of multicolored light, yellow and blue and green, but the primary was a vivid, near sick pink. The patron goddess of House Piexes, The Witch, smiled down on them. She was a figure of love and healing, ironic for a house so obsessed with war. In this light, the pink seemed like blood pouring over them, even as her smiling figure outstretched her hands as if to offer the pair all the divine joy they could hold.

“So resistant, my lord - why?” she had a voice like an oil slick.  
He began to make a reply, but just then, she acted upon him with force equal to that of her hands. The next thing he knew, she had pushed him back a solid fifteen feet and set his back to the hard stone wall. He felt it crumbling behind him. with the sudden rush of force. His dark blue eyes widened in horror as the tiny woman smiled up at him. Her look was puckish, mischievous - far too played down to match her actions.

“Kiss me,” she demanded, “I could taste like your little maid.”  
A look of stunned horror crossed Equius’s face. His free hand, the one she wasn’t still gripping fit to bruise, reached for her neck, but she drew back and his fingers only closed around her necklace. He would take what he had though, and he used the leverage to tug her closer.  
“Ooh, so I see you’re a naughty boy, Lord Zahhak,” she cackled, “Let us play rough then.” She tilted her head to the side, baring her neck in a gesture Equius wasn’t about to mistake for submission. “Bite me,” she offered, “My mouth might not taste like her, but I promise my blood will. Just like sheep shit, right?”

Infuriated, he pulled harder. “Release me, you lewd mockery,” he growled. He could not believe that his strength was not enough to match Scratch’s puppet whore.  
The necklace gave before she did. The delicate gold chain bent and snapped and slipped like liquid through Equius’s fingers. Damara’s eyes went wide as she realized what was happening, and she gasped as the necklace hit the floor.  
The bright, glowing red stone bounced once... and then shattered into sharp shards and fine, glittering red dust.

There was stillness for a moment. And then - “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” Damara screeched. “You fucking worthless, pathetic, weak little man.” She was enraged.  
A well-trained warrior, Equius tried to take advantage of her moment of weakness to overpower her, but Damara was not about to allow it. The moment his muscles tensed, she felt it and bared her teeth like an animal.

The tiny witch of a woman flung Equius bodily to the floor. He slid and came to a bruised, painful rest on the cracked marble floor. The lord was dazed, but awake and alive. His eyes crossed for a moment, but he could see Damara sweep from the room, rushing out of the Gods’ Hall.


	15. Chapter 15

A young woman lay dead on the floor. The room - a large study, tastefully furnished in shades of green and black - was otherwise tranquil. A man stood alone, staring down at the body. The dead girl was lovely. Her sorrel skin looked ashen. Her large brown eyes were lightless and glassy, stuck open and staring unseeing. Her pretty face was frozen and stiff. She didn’t look peaceful. A knife lay on the floor nearby.

The man sighed and shook his head slowly with disappointment. And then he looked up and made a gesture in the air. His hand left a crackling green slash in the air, which he leaned into and spoke with a disinterested tone, “Itchy. I find myself in need of a bit of muscle. Bring a few of the boys to my study.” The green slash crackled and the man nodded before allowing it to fade from existence.  
Within minutes, several men dressed in green appeared. Even their skin seemed rather greenish, though that may have been the light in the castle. The Clocktower, as it was called, was made entirely from green marble and weathered copper long since oxidized by the wind and water of the cold northern sea at the bottom of the cliff on which the construction perched.

“Move the body,” the bone-pale man ordered with a point, urgent and short of words. “It needs to be prepared quickly. If we let it grow cold there could be... defects.” He said the word grudgingly, reluctant to admit that his power could have limits. The curl of his lip at the word, too, indicated something of disgust, implying that those defects would be horrific indeed.

Usually Scratch was a calm man, cool of head in any situation. Why be jumpy when he was always in such control? And he took great pains never to place himself in any situation where he was not in control. But now he was different. He was agitated, anxious to rush and get the job done. “I brought the girl back once before,” he said, more to himself than to the green-clad servants bustling around him, “I can do it again.”

The servants did not need extra prompting to know what to do. It only took one man (a large fellow, at that) to lift the girl into his arms and bear her downstairs. A few men went ahead, opening doors, leading the way, while others followed behind to close the doors. The pale man followed as well.  
They had to descend from the high tower that housed his study, down, down, down to the basement levels, cut into the stone of the cliffs. Someone else might have suggested they be called dungeons. But they were not. The Clocktower housed no prisoners, and as such had no use for dungeons. Instead they appeared more like laboratories: rooms that held shelves of books and strange, frothing liquids, desks full of notes, small cages holding what had likely been rats once, and slabs upon which to perform what could only be acts contrary to nature. The drains in the slightly sloped floor hinted at nothing good. And the fact that the rooms were well-lit only increased their horror.

“Set her there,” the man said, now pointing to a heavy marble slab at waist height in the middle of one such room. The green servants obeyed, setting down the corpse. The man stared at it and sighed.

Scratch was not an attractive man, though neither was he ugly. He had the look of someone truly neutral, an outline with nothing filled in, no details to speak of. His flesh was pale and papery, and his hair was not so much white as colorless. The robes of pale green he wore served to wash him out further. He was short, far shorter than most men and quite a few women. He was neither thin nor fat, occupying only as much space as he needed and no more. He seemed older, but not aged; thin lines carved spaces in the corners of his eyes, the ends of his mouth, between his brows, and in fine, stacked rivets on his forehead. But he might have been anything from a bedraggled forty-five to a very well-kept seventy. And, unless one had had extensive dealings with him, he was entirely forgettable.  
The hand that reached up to brushed some stray hairs from his damp brow was bony, nearly skeletal, but with impeccably manicured fingernails. The face usually frozen into an enigmatic smile, like Mona Lisa with something to hide, was for once scowling. Scratch was displeased. His current situation had thrown him off and he did not care for it.

What on earth had possessed that damnable girl to go at him as she had? Was she stupid? He knew she wasn’t. He never would have chosen her if she had been, nor have put up with her for as long as he had.  
But she’d gone at him all the same, with a knife, as if that would have done anything. Scratch had survived more than a few assassination attempts in his disturbingly long life. No peasant girl with a temper was going to do him in as easy as that.

Scratch sighed again and looked down at the dead girl on the slab. “Did you really have to do that, child?” he asked of the corpse as he removed his over robe and rolled up the long, tight sleeves of his shirt. “I would not have had to take away your life privileges had you behaved yourself. I might even have let you live to see the capitol.”

She was dead for a reason of course. Scratch had killed her. He’d had to; she’d tried to kill him after all. He couln’t allow that to slide. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t fully intended to kill her eventually. But not then. Not yet.

“Not the worst situation, all things considered,” he said to himself. His green men knew enough to act without every move ordered, and were busy fetching trays of alarming looking implements and bringing them to their master. “But I so would have rathered this be a slow transition and not an emergency. Now it’s going to be sloppy.” Scratch detested a mess.

He cut the dress off of her body with a pair of sharp shears and clinical air. He needed her for her body, but only in the most literal of senses. Scratch had no interest in sex and no desire for anyone, male or female. It was not in his nature. And when you’d lived as long as he had, you had the time to try everything and find it all lacking. This girl held no interest for him in that sense, and no girl ever would.

The mage stared appraisingly at the dead girl. He didn’t need to change anything physical about her. She was as whole as he ever could have hoped for. She was ideal, really. A pretty girl, a clever girl, a girl touched by the spark of magic.

He’d selected her first for her magical aptitude, second for her wits, and third for her striking resemblance to his fallen servant. They were not identical, needless to say; that would have been quite impossible. But they bore more than a passing resemblance. Like sisters. It may have been the same bloodline, though Scratch had not delved that closely and could not be sure. Still. The same warm brown skin (though Damara’s had grown pale from a childhood indoors while Aradia’s farm life had browned her like a nut). The same black, long hair (though Damara’s was sleek and straight while Aradia’s curled into a mass of ringlets). The same dark, almost red, brown eyes (though Damara’s had been far colder than Aradia’s). The same petite build (though Damara had always tended towards bones while Aradia filled out into soft curves and round flesh easily). But the small hands and feet and the delicate features of their faces had been too alike to ignore. As was their identical iron will and the force of magic that had coursed through both of the girls’ veins, just waiting to be harnessed. 

And harness it Scratch had.  
Unfortunately, the two women had also shared the same propensity to lose their cool. As the little lunge that had ended Aradia’s life had proven.

“I’d have liked to train you more,” he said with some nostalgia. “It was such a delight when my girl was learning. Everything was so new for her. Shame about the rebellious phase, but, ah, children.” He sounded paternal. The green men glanced at one another but knew better than to comment.

Scratch opened a heavy, dusty tome held up by a green man. He flicked through it until he found the page he needed, at which point he reviewed the information within, running a bony finger down the lines of arcane text.

He looked back to the body, eyes catching on the slim gold chain with a sparkling red garnet on the end. He smirked, thinking of its many sister. He’d manufactured dozens of such necklaces and strewn them about the Empire. They were charmed, of course. From their original locations, they would have been noticeable only by girls possessing magical aptitude. After all, a girl with magical aptitude was exactly what Scratch needed to take on the soul he meant to transplant. The only thing Scratch needed in the world.

Had he been able to kill the Empress himself, he would have done so years ago. Unfortunately, the woman was as powerful a mage as she was a warrior. And she’d set wards on herself and then shaped her Empire to take up the slack those wards left. Through a series of magics, she could not be slain by any force, any weapon. Only magic would work. And only magic from another woman. An odd little flaw, likely the product of some ancient spell.  
Unable to cover that chink in her armor, the Empress had changed society to suit it: all girls who showed any talent for magics was to be reported to their leigelord and sent to the Jade Order - a convent on a secluded island. There, the girls were trained to use their magic to heal. Anyone displaying any violent or rebellious inclinations were summarily killed, quietly drowned in the deep, cool waters around their island home. In this fashion, the Empress contained the problem.

So Scratch had been forced to find the impossible: a magic girl unclaimed by the Order, since their wards, too, were too much for him to bother with. It had taken years, but eventually, Scratch had settled for graverobbing.

A child was born who showed an aptitude. Who the girl was was immaterial. Scratch seemed to recall that her mother had been young and unwed, of the lowest birth. Though details had faded away, deemed unimportant. The baby had died almost right away. (Or, perhaps, had been made to appear dead by a clever interference... Details. Details.) And then she’d been buried in a nameless grave. Which Scratch had dug up himself hours later.  
The process to revive her and make sure of her magic hadn’t been clean, quick, or painless. But it ended. And Scratch found himself with an extremely gifted child. He had no choice but the raise her, and he was well prepared for what he’d gotten himself into.

He met the challenge and brought the girl up himself, naming her Damara. He raised her to know her place and her purpose, and for a time she was a quiet, sweet, clever child. And then she entered into her teen years and grew... difficult. A challenging teenager, she’d fought him and her destiny at every turn. Until eventually she used the magics she had learned to flee the Clocktower and her father-figure.

Scratch never learned what happened until years later. And when he did know, he did not care. All that mattered is that she returned to him eighteen months later, half-crazed and with more fury than one would think such a tiny body could hold. When she finally calmed down, the fires were quenched and she melted into her tears.  
He had warned her. He had raised her from the dead, and were any part of her (and, by extension, his wards) were to break - mind, spirit, heart - she would break with it. The stupid girl had gone and given away her heart. And had it shattered in return.  
She melted into her tears and was no more. He had warned her.

And so there went his primary weapon. At least he’d managed to preserve her soul, which he kept on a bottle on a shelf, awaiting someone new to house it... which was why he set out the necklaces. Once a target took the bait and touched it with her bare skin, he would have a sense for her. He could select the proper body for the job. And, when the time came, he could use that same gem to track her down. Which he had, finding Aradia and her dubious luck.

Then the only thing to do was to train her up, prepare her so that the body would not reject the sudden invasion of a new soul and the influx of the heavy magical energies Damara bore. He only wished it could have held off a little longer. And not so damn sudden. Now there’d be difficulties. Stiff, unwilling limbs. Perhaps even traces of the girl, thoughts clinging to the body, that could potentially alter Damara’s thoughts or personality (not that it couldn’t use a little altering).

As he thought to himself, Scratch labored. He drew multicolored orbs from pouches of leather netting. Some were striped and others solid, and each bore arcane symbols. He’d been storing magic in them, saved to supplement himself at a later date. The orbs hovered as their power was suctioned up by Scratch’s fingertips, and then bounced heavily to the stones.  
Thus bolstered, he worked from the ends of Aradia’s toes and up, until her skin glowed an eerie green and her hair sparked with static. Then he set both hands on her chest. “Fetch a bottle,” he ordered his green men in a low voice. Bent in concentration, he did not notice how slow they were to move. But as he drew what looked like tendrils of smoke from the girl’s chest, he grit his teeth. “A bottle!” he snapped again, forcing the men to pay attention and all begin scrambling at once. But they tripped each other up, confusing one another, and ultimately moving far slower than Scratch’s spellcraft.  
He could not look up, could not break concentration. He had begun the spell and it must be completed. A column of reddish-brown tinged smoke resolved itself into an undulating ball of red energy, turning and twisting in the mage’s hand. “A bottle!” he yelled. But it was taking too long. He could not release her into nothingness: a loose soul was unpredictable, dangerous. His pale green eyes darted and alighted again on the necklace he’d neglected to remove. It was heated white hot and sparking from the magics, but it was the only thing near.

In a haste, Scratch picked up the garnet of the necklace and clutched it in his palm, guiding Aradia’s soul into a column once more and forcing it into the gem. It glowed, pulsating in a way that may have been shock, exhaustion, or anger. He would have to destroy it. But first, Damara. The body couldn’t be left like this for long or it would be useless and all would be for naught.

Scratch reached up and drew a small bottle from a chain around his neck. It did not need to be uncorked: the girl was in the crystal itself. Repeating his motion with Aradia, he guiding the blood red and liquid-looking column into his hand, where it became a boiling scarlet orb. He did not allow it to rest long before forcing it into the chest of the girl before him.

For a moment, nothing.  
And then -   
A heavy gasp racked the body as crackling, snapping magic forced convulsions. The gasp was expelled as a shrill, harsh scream that made the room rattle with its force. The green men were floored. Even Scratch withdrew and cringed. But he recovered to grab the girl’s flailing arms and hold down her wildly seizing body to the table.

When at last the movements died down, the girl was left gasping heavily for breath, eyes closed. Cautiously, Scratch withdrew, regarding her warily. Had it worked? Or would she be comatose and useless to him?  
He spent a tense moment holding his breath.  
And then-  
The eyes opened. Aradia’s red brown eyes. But gone was the soft, caring soul behind them. The soul staring through these eyes was hard and sharp as flint.

A smile spread over Scratch’s face. “Damara,” he said, sounding almost pleased. “So nice of you to join me.”  
She opened her mouth, but Scratch held up a hand. “Don’t try. You won’t be able to yet. You’re far from resurrected, my dear. After that temper tantrum of yours you were _quite_ unsalvageable.” His pale lip curled. “And your new host was just as rash. Conditions are far from ideal. But don’t fret your lovely new head; I’ll have you put to right in no time.”  
The hard eyes narrowed with fury. And Scratch knew he had his Damara - his faithful servant, his most valuable weapon, the girl he’d raised from infancy - back on the chessboard.

The garnet’s glowing had ceased on Aradia’s - _Damara’s_ \- chest, the necklace quite forgotten.


End file.
